The long game and urgency of the Ogallala Aquifer playing out now for Dr. Susan Metzger

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Hi everyone. I'm Paul Yeager. This is the MToM show podcast production of Iowa PBS and the Market to Market TV show. We're going to get into water again today and specifically the Ogallala. It's over several states and it's been for several years of an issue of who gets what. How do we decide its future and just what exactly is at stake? And is anyone's interest more important than another? We're going to take a look at this issue from a Kansas perspective today. And we're going to talk with Susan Metzger. She's the director of Strategic Interdisciplinary Program Development and also the director of the Kansas Center for Agriculture Resource and the Environment and the Kansas Water Institute. She's got a big title and a very important job in trying to sort out this issue. We've talked about water in the West while the water issue is coming east, and it's going to continue going east as we find out in this discussion about the Ogallala. It's a fascinating story, and it's one that everybody is kind of paying attention to. And finding out exactly what can be learned and what things can be done now to preserve this resource for the future. My thanks to Susan for her time on this interview and patience and working with me in the technology. Hopefully when you watch or listen to this, you know, notice a thing. But if you have feedback for me and you did notice something, send it to me at Paul.Yeager@IowaPBS.org. New episodes of this podcast come out each and every Tuesday on our YouTube channel or wherever you get podcasts. Now let's get to one of those discussions with Susan Metzger. 

Is the East Coast Heat the same as Kansas Heat?

[Susan Metzger]  , well, it is not. So I'm here in Washington, D.C. for this week, and they've been claiming it's a heat wave, but it has not even approached the 90s. In Kansas, we would take the 90s as a spring temperature. But the difference certainly is the pavement here, and the humidity makes it feel a whole lot hotter.

[Yeager]  . But let's be honest, though, the East Coast, I mean, they call D.C. the Swamp for a couple of reasons, but it is built on a swamp. You know how D.C. can be in August. That's why that's why our forefathers left during that time of year. Too hot.  .

[Metzger] That's true. That's very true. It is very muggy here.

[Yeager]  . Where did the love of working in Kansas come from? Or where did working in Kansas start for you?

[Metzger] Sure. Well, I actually I spent quite a bit of time here on the East Coast. My father was in the military, and we moved all around the world when we were growing up. but he retired in the Northern Virginia area. So that's where I went to high school and actually went to college and grad schools in Virginia. But then about 22 years ago, I moved to Kansas, and I've been there since. And so I count that as home. not just because of the longest tenure being there, but just because that's where my heart is.

[Yeager]  . And in Manhattan, is that where you're based?

[Metzger]  . That's right. The Little Apple.

[Yeager] The Little Apple, you know, Manhattan is very similar to a lot of these, the cities that are the land grant institutions, the Ames, the Stillwater, you know, they have a lot of those commonalities. Champaign, Illinois. What is it about those other institutions that you've enjoyed working with over the years?

[Metzger] Absolutely.  . You're right. There is something special about the communities around a land grant institution. And, Manhattan, to me is special for a number of reasons. It has this unique relationship where it's located right next to a major military installation. And then you have the university as well. And so those two communities, collaborating together, just make it really different. And I think when you're situated in a land grant community, it's really the land grant mission. It's more about serving the people of Kansas. And you kind of feel that in the community you're into.

[Yeager]  . And being by Fort Riley, was your dad ever stationed there?

[Metzger]  . Surprisingly. Now, he was never at Fort Riley himself. but almost everywhere but Fort Riley.

[Yeager] Fort Riley has a good history there, for certain. So you have two main jobs. One is with KCare and the other is with the Kansas Water Institute. How are those two tied together for you?

[Metzger]  , certainly. So my primary role is actually in the president's office at K-State, my formal title is the director of Strategic Interdisciplinary Programs. And, that there are two programs or several programs that really fall under that, that I have the opportunity to serve as a director for, one of which is KCare and one of which is The Water Institute. And they're really, related, but different. so the Kansas Center for AG Resources and the environment, or KCare, has been around for a little better than 20 years. It's located within the College of Agriculture. And so it's really to serve agriculture and it's intersection with the environment. but it's more than water. It can be carbon sequestration, nutrient runoff, things like that. That would impact agriculture and natural resources. So that's one side. And then the Water Institute is at a university level. It's interdisciplinary. It's not housed in any one college. So it actually serves more than agriculture. And it's entirely focused on water, not the other natural resources.

[Yeager]  . Well, let's see - you checked hot button, hot button, hot button, hot button. All right. There in and all of those things. That's a tough job to balance a lot of those interests Susan. Let's start with the k care side on knowing that carbon sequestration, huge topic right now, especially in the Ogallala region, that we're going to talk about here in a minute. Nutrient runoff, that's always a topic in farm country. But let's start with water.  . Because that is our basic element. Is that the primary?  I won't say function of the job, but a topic that comes up on the most frequent basis.  , absolutely. Even when you talk about those other natural resources and even things like nutrient runoff, it all comes back to water. I really, maybe it's because I love water so much. And in the study of it that I can pretty much trace any topic back to water. it's like six degrees of separation, and it always comes back to that.

[Metzger] It really is the core. And when you're in the heartland and your job is producing the nation's food and fuel, really, you can't do that without considering water resource management. And Kansas is pretty unique to that. where I'm one half of the state, quite dry, semi-arid, and on the other half of the state, oftentimes quite wet. So you see it all just within our state boundaries.

[Yeager]  . And I go and let's go west of you for a minute. I've had conversations with those in Arizona and California and Oregon about water. That's at the source of a lot of things. Where do you look for? I won't necessarily say guidance, but input. for ideas on how other areas are talking about water.

[Metzger]  , certainly. so I would say we're lucky in our state, in our own communities. And then also to our neighbors. So we have some similarities with those states that you mentioned. So, we are our western portion of the state of really our entire state is governed by, the Western water doctrine, which is a first in time, first and right. So the first person to lay claim to the beneficial use of the water has the right, so that water first, irrelevant of the use made of water. So it doesn't prioritize agriculture over municipal use. domestic use kind of held in its own accord. But, so, you know, there are things we can learn from our other Western neighbors about their water management. But I would say more often than not, I find our neighbors, particularly Colorado, Oklahoma and Texas, looking at us, looking at Kansas as a model for the types of policies and programs that address declines in the Oglala. and then also internally. So we have a pretty, robust network of stakeholder engagement that's either formally collected through, regional advisory committees or collected in an ad hoc way, as needed by topic. And so I would say, that's really the core of the way that we do our planning. It's never from a top down, always intended to be from the ground up.  .

[Yeager]  It's easy for me to ask, to say that water is political.  . With the way you've mentioned, the way the Kansas Water Institute is set up. That doesn't sound political. That sounds like it's a whole lot of stakeholders and not one is over the other. Was that set up intentionally that way to try to take some politics out of these discussions?

[Metzger]  , absolutely. So I would kind of look at it a few ways. So that, good science has to be separated from policy. So and that's really, you know, the core function of our university is generating the knowledge that then helps inform good policy. So we play that role. But we're also interdisciplinary. So, taking into account that good water decisions aren't just agronomic decisions aren't just engineering solutions. it requires social solutions, economics solutions, all those things together. So it's interdisciplinary. The Water Institute is also inter-institutional. so I, I bleed purple, I wear purple, that's where my home is. but really, the talent and knowledge happens at all of our region institutions throughout the state. So part of the work at the Water Institute is making sure that our peer institutions, the University of Kansas and Wichita State, Fort Hay State, we're all partners in addressing our water resource concerns. But there is a political part to it. and those two always kind of have to work and inform each other. So the science and helps inform good policy. And then we evaluate the impact of the policy in practice. We're actually really fortunate in Kansas. We have an entire legislative committee devoted to water who really takes the science seriously, when making their decisions.

[Yeager] It's hard to do the science first, when you have people who scream, I am going, I shouldn't say scream, who’s voice is ‘We're going to need drinking water.’  There's those who are going to. We need water for pastures and alfalfa and crops. And then there's the all the other uses of water, because,  , we all have needs, Susan, frankly, when it comes to water.

[Metzger]  Absolutely. And there's a real sense of urgency, especially when we talk about declines in the Ogallala. and sometimes science is slow. Research is slow. And, so that's really something that the pressure of good science is making sure that you're still proceeding at a pace where decisions can be made in real time. And so that's some great examples of some of the work that we have, not just in the Water Institute, but through KCare, where we're really doing science and practice on the ground. Hand in hand with producers. So we're co learning, we're studying, we're putting the practices in play with the media. Say sometimes at the expense of you'd love to have this beautifully replicated, study. but with great fancy charts, but there's, better, better implementation when we're able to do it in practice with the producer.

[Yeager] Yep. The Ogallala, it covers eight states or parts of eight states.  It's one of those. Once it's gone, it's going to take way longer than our lifetime to replenish. Are you at a point where you feel in your role as a defender?  A conduit for discussion. An innovator?  A problem solver.

How do you describe your LinkedIn bio? Trying to be in this discussion with your Uncle?.

[Metzger] Absolutely. Makes me think I need to go update my LinkedIn profile after this. Although it sounds really good. so. And maybe it kind of depends on, on the day, and, and the work or topic and even to some extent where we are in the Ogallala. So, when you look at western Kansas as a whole, $57 billion economy dependent on that water supply. Like you describe, it's an ancient aquifer. We are never going to get to the point of, even if we  start pumping today, where we would replenish those supplies to a point where we can then just kind of pick up with the same practices and not experience these consequences in the future. So instead, it's managing what we have. in the most responsible way moving forward. And, and it's not all the same throughout the Ogallala. So we have areas in Kansas that still have probably 100, 200 years of, of thick aquifer thickness, usable supply, and others where we've already reached a point where it's difficult to even maintain domestic wells. So you see quite a bit of diversity, just in within our own state boundaries over the Ogallala, which also makes it really challenging just to create one uniform practice or policy because there's just so much diversity.

[Yeager] Does that diversity from, you know, what is it? I think 2.3 million people depend on this for drinking water. And then, that it's not 5 million, 10 million that it might be, say, on something in the West in, in larger populations. Does that change the discussion at all?

[Metzger] You know, I do think it makes it different. where not to say that we don't have some large communities that certainly are, have those maybe tensions between rural and urban settings. I think the difference between us and say, a, a Las Vegas or, Los Angeles for western Kansas is that even most of our large communities in western Kansas are there because of agriculture. You know, there is a major packing plant or a some other ag related industry. And and so if you remove agriculture from the picture, chances are you will remove a good portion of the population that's driving those communities. So I'd say there's less of the rub in our Western Kansas communities that say maybe one use against the other.

[Yeager] And frankly, the Ogallala is not a secret. Everybody knows you have water. And everybody seems to have a straw that keeps getting longer and longer whenever you hear these ideas.  . What if we pipeline it? What if we. Hey, could we borrow a cup of water? You know those calls, I'm guessing. I'm sorry.

[Yeager] Let me ask this first. Do those calls come?  .

[Metzger] Absolutely. Yes. Those calls come in. And like you described early on as looking to our neighbors to the West. They have made that system work very well. A system that transports large portions of water through open canals. Sometimes pipelines, sharing amongst state boundaries, even sharing amongst international boundaries in some places. So, I would not say it is out of the question. I think no idea is ever out of the question. I think the key is if we don't do something that works to conserve our resources today, preserves the communities that are dependent on the resource and the economic drivers that are dependent on that resource. if we just focus on bringing in new supplies, which in reality is a 20, 30, maybe even 40 or 50 year project to have in place and functioning. if you just put, I guess, all your eggs in that basket, you won't have the supply today that is generating that economic driver that's keeping the communities in place. So to me, it has to be both. We have to work on conserving the resource that we have in place today. maintaining the communities and the economic drivers that we have that are dependent on that resource. So that when you reach the point where you have those larger projects that might be bringing in new supplies, it's not all for naught.

[Yeager] Well, I was just writing down to conserve and preserve. but those at the front of the line.

[Metzger]  In my work, they are at the front of the line. and in the communities that I visit with and the practices that I see in place also at the front of the line, at least in the state of Kansas.

[Yeager] And when these stakeholders meet. How often are you meeting now and have those frequency of meetings increased? 

[Metzger] Sure. I would say meetings have increased. And, they take on, I guess, different, venues or reasons for getting together. So right now in the state of Kansas, we have a pretty structured process going that's, directed from the governor's office. Governor Kelly directed the Kansas Water Authority to basically create a state plan that's similar to our highway plan. So we where we have a transportation plan that's a ten year infrastructure investment plan in the state. And, Governor Kelly directed the water authority to create basically something parallel for water. how would we actually prioritize our investment and water resource management over the next ten years? and so part of that is stakeholder engagement. So actually the next two weeks, group is helping to guide these conversations all throughout the state and looking at water quality, water quantity over the Ogallala. And then our eastern Kansas were mostly surface water driven, a series of reservoirs. So what are we going to do to secure the storage and those reservoirs? So going out to each of those communities, asking them what their priorities are, and then even, walking through some exercises of if you have limited resources, which we do, where would you as a citizen invest your dollars? And so, with that stakeholder feedback will generate that comparable plan for water like we have with transportation.

[Yeager] So in that example you're saying resource is not water. Resource is money. Even though we talk water is a resource. Right? I just want to make sure I caught that right.

[Metzger] Absolutely. Yes.

[Yeager] Well and that's but I've written it dozens of times over the years about water being a precious resource. It is, you know, it's a fundamental thing that's needed for agriculture. But then I get these phone calls or emails that people get angry, over production, agriculture, taking, a whole lot of water. Now, Kansas and Iowa, Illinois, we’re similar, but different some of our crops are a little more water intensive.  . You can.  . What is it they say about a wheat crop? You can kill it seven times, but that's, you know, but it can handle drought. But then I get the call every time we do a story about Norman Borlaug that says he didn't do us a favor, he did his worst because wheat’s still dependent on water. Those agriculture interests are my question. Susan. What are what's their loudest? concern that they give to you?

[Metzger] So, you know, it is interesting. I think that's kind of the benefit of some of these statewide conversations because, it does ask individuals it might be in Kansas City with no direct tie to the Ogallala or agriculture. you know, what they value as far as conserving and extending the usable lifetime of the Ogallala. So you do start, I guess, in a sense, having some of those value judgment conversations with the citizens of Kansas, and perhaps even amongst different sectors of agriculture. Do you prioritize crop production over, beef production? those sorts of things. So who gets water even within the agricultural industry? as you know, I think that as opposed to maybe some areas throughout the country, those two things maybe are pitted less against each other just because, agriculture is the state's largest economic driver in the state of Kansas. If you remove agriculture from our picture, you almost decrease our economy by a half. And so I think it really is, finding the solutions that keep agriculture sustainable.

[Yeager] Susan, earlier this year, you had a, I think, a summit. Tell me, who were those who was at that and what was the point of it?  .

[Metzger] Absolutely. So it was the Ogallala Summit. It's the third time we've hosted this, and the entire purpose of it is to convene the eight states that depend on the Ogallala together. so we have the opportunity over a two day time frame to hear from each other about the conditions of the of, in their own state. What are some of the concerns they have, best practices that they're seeing? How can we actually just learn from each other? and, and make some of those, changes from what we're seeing in our neighbors. And, I've had the chance to go to all three. And the benefit of that is, over the years, there have been things that we've learned from our peers and other states that we've put into practice and things that we've done well here in Kansas that others are putting into practice in their states, too. So it's it's a really effective, opportunity to get together.

[Yeager] Susan, the Ogallala is over eight states. Is there one in particular that leads or not necessarily the big dog in the room? But Nebraska has a pretty big claim to the Ogallala. Do they get to have, like, more shares in the discussion?  .

[Metzger] That's a good question. I don't think so. so I think because each state governs their water resource policy separately, and we don't have, I mean, with some exceptions. There are interstate compacts that govern our surface water flows between those two states. but nothing that really governs how we'll share the Ogallala. So it's almost like I've heard it said, you know, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas when it's related to the Ogallala. That's the truth with how we manage the Ogallala amongst our states. So, that's not to say that we don't learn from each other or that you don't even see some interaction right on state borders that cause some conflict. But in general, the way you manage it in your state is, is the way you manage it in your state. And if I, you know, to be honest, I kind of feel like Kansas does it kind of the best, you know? There are certainly things we learn from our neighbors, but there are some policies and practices that we've had in place. And even just down to the point of that, we've been requiring metering and annual water use reporting for every water right in the state for many decades. And our neighboring states, envy that. And because it's practice now, it's not, anything that's difficult to adapt to. Whereas some of our other states, Texas in particular, I think would like to consider some of that metering or annual water use reporting. but because practice hasn't been that way for decades, it's difficult to implement it now. So I think Kansas does it pretty good. 

[Yeager] But that gets into a whole thing. If you don't start now, then you'll never start. Exact question. And that's always a hard thing. what about in Iowa in particular? We've become very big in this state very big for data, data companies or servers, server farms, because those companies see our water as an opportunity to cool servers. And.we love our devices. We love our shopping. We love what's in the cloud. But at some point that's going to come to, that bill's going to come due. There's already stories written about Iowa losing groundwater, or river water because of those surveys. How does that figure into this discussion now?

[Metzger] That's quite interesting because I usually look at it as maybe from a different perspective. I hadn't thought of it from that server perspective. What we talk about quite a bit in Kansas is who owns the data, who's whose data is it? And, if you're collecting that data that helps improve management decisions, how do you protect that? At the core of the kind of person that's generating the data. so I'd say that's really where a lot of our conversations come into play with the data in Kansas. and also trying to figure out so and you guys experienced this in Iowa, too. literally, you're collecting terabytes of data on a farm any given time from the GPS in your tractor and the yield monitors that you're pulling off, the mapping, you know, precision agriculture and the application. And there's just there's so much data. There's more data, than the decisions that we make from it. And so how do you really boil it down to the most important information?

[Yeager] And then you have the server farms where we're storing somebody else's data there. Back up to Facebook. I mean, Kansas has long been that spot where we've sent seeds into the earth to protect them from whatever could happen. We've got other people's data on server farms and Facebook farms and Microsoft and Google, server farms. So,  that's another part of this as well. Okay. I want to close with water quality issues if we could. how do you find that?  Are folks willing to engage in those types of discussions? Also? Are they doing the water quality discussion like they do with preserving the water itself?

[Metzger] Absolutely. So eastern Kansas is mostly surface water driven. That's where we find that we have more of our non-point source, concerns, nutrient management concerns. so we have, though most of the funding comes from the Environmental Protection Agency EPA 319 program. but also we have state dollars and local dollars that help direct working with producers to put practices in on the ground, that help keep nutrients in place. Whether there's actually soil health practices, tillage changes or other, applications that help manage that. So, again, you know, I think that's true probably in Iowa too. while you're often doing that to protect some downstream communities and their water quality supply, it all, begins and ends with the producer and so having a great relationship with the producer to find the types of practices that make sense to keep their operation successful. They don't want to lose nutrients any more than the community downstream wants to receive them. So working with them to keep those nutrients and applications in place.

[Yeager] Susan, what's the biggest winner when a national press comes calling? Or an organization that is looking at this issue of water and, and what you're studying, what does it you hope? Are there two big takeaways, from how you're handling it?  

[Metzger]  So I think, probably the first takeaway is this, sometimes it feels like the long game, but to me, it's the most important thing. locally driven solutions have the highest probability for long term success. And so it really needs to stay there. those decisions have to be generated with local knowledge, local data, and then built up to inform great policy and programs that support that. So I think that's always where I lead. And then I think the second is truly a sense of urgency. like I said, there might be some places where we have sustainable supply for truly decades, if not hundreds of years into the future. But for the most part, that's not the case. And so, while the long game is necessary, there's a sense of urgency that something needs to be done today.

[Yeager] Urgency on an issue that's not new, but it's just absolutely come to a head here in the last few years indeed.

[Yeager] All right. Susan Metzger, I appreciate you making time for us, to fill us in on this topic. And I really hope we can talk again in the future and see how things are progressing.

[Metzger] I hope so, too. Thank you for your time.

[Yeager] The senior producer for Market to Market is David Miller. The production supervisor is Chad Aubrey. Our audio engineers are David Feingold, Shawn Ingrassia, Kevin Rivers, Neil Kyer, and Julie Knutson. My name is Paul Yeager. I serve as your producer and host and editor of this podcast. We look forward to you consuming another episode next Tuesday. We'll see you next time. Bye bye.