Kansas U.S. Senator Roger Marshall and Colorado’s Michael Bennet hosted a field hearing yesterday, highlighting drought concerns in the High Plains.
Marshall spoke with Bret Baier of Fox News following the hearing to discuss water conservation.
“What we’re trying to figure out is how we can conserve water,” he said. “Because of the drought, we’re using water faster than we can replenish it. We use this water to replenish our crops and nourish our animals.”
“As we put the final touches on this Farm Bill, we need to make sure we’re spending that money wisely,” he added.
In Burlington, Colorado, yesterday, the Senators heard from officials with the Kansas Department of Ag, the state Water Office and from Kansas MesoNet assistant meteorologist Chip Redmond.
“The region has become an area of extreme vulnerability,” he said. “We’ve seen extreme wet and extreme dry conditions.”
“When we look at climate over time,” he added. “Typically, drought tends to be the most impactful of these extreme conditions.”
Redmond also spoke on the ENSO region.
“The area received a surplus of rain last spring,” he said. “Unfortunately, since then we’ve seen that surplus of water decrease and the temperatures decrease to neutral.”
Redmond explained that groups like MesoNet and other cooperative observers are important because they fill a role that coop observations cannot fill. Since the year 2000, Kansas has lost 36% of cooperative observer organizations.
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