What's the Deal with Water? Water Management, Rights, and Conservation

Jim Whitt with Purpose Unlimited comes onto the Uptime Logistics Podcast to discuss water rights and water conservation. Coming from an agricultural background working with cattle and oil businesses, he consults with clients both on purpose driven leadership and water rights, water conservation, and water management.

 

Water management is about stewarding our most important natural resources. “Without water, we do not survive.” It plays into the economy and our daily lives through many pathways. One example they explore is the 174,000 square-mile Ogallala aquifer that rests below seven states: South Dakota, Wyoming, Nebraska, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Texas. That aquifer irrigates a large percentage of our crops for food production here in the US and around the world. This region produces $20 billion worth of food annually.  Despite the current challenges of droughts, Jim discusses several water conservation strategies that have been showing exciting potential for the future.

 

They also discuss the 50 year water vision put forward in the state of Kansas. They created water conservation areas where people with water rights were given the choice to accept more freedom in moving water around as long as they agreed to pump less water overall. They also created water technology farms as a a demonstration to test and showcase new opportunities to increase or maintain yields while reducing water consumption.  People are realizing that farms are worth much if they don’t have access to water, so there’s increasing willingness to join in creative and cooperative policies, behaviors, and technologies.

 

As for technology, Jim describes one tested solution called Dragon Lines from Teeter Irrigation as a major improvement to pivot irrigation. With traditional pivots, a lot of water is lost to evaporation. Adding in advanced drip line techniques can improve pivot performance dramatically, saving at 20-50% of water use among other benefits. “It’s one of the biggest things technology wise I’ve seen in my lifetime.”

 

After watching or listening to the show, check out more about the Kansas Water Vision and Jim’s film here: https://kwo.ks.gov/water-vision-water-plan/water-vision