Kansas water regulators propose streamlined impairment rules, clarify multi‑year allocations amid data‑center concerns

The Kansas Department of Agriculture’s Division of Water Resources proposed sweeping changes to groundwater impairment and LEMA regulations, seeking to shorten investigations and better reflect multiyear allocation law while drawing questions from lawmakers about large new water users such as proposed AI data centers.

The changes, presented by Earl Lewis, chief engineer and director at the Kansas Department of Agriculture’s Division of Water Resources, would revoke two existing impairment regulations (KAR 5-41 and 5-41a) and replace them with a single streamlined section (referred to in testimony as 5-41b). Lewis told the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules and Regulations that the new language reduces procedural burdens on senior water-right holders and shortens the investigative process the statute already requires.

Lewis said the division’s goal is to “make sure the people that have the access or the rights to the water first get the water they’re entitled to.” He explained the changes are focused on groundwater investigations, which he described as more complex than surface-water cases because impacts are harder to observe.

Under the proposed approach, a person who believes they are being impaired would notify a field office or headquarters; the division would then identify junior rights in the area, notify those junior rights holders, collect…