Garden City ? Citing a decline in the underground water supply, the state’s chief water engineer has imposed strict restraints on drilling for new wells in 52 southwest Kansas townships.

The regulations affect eight counties of Groundwater Management District No. 3, where residents have debated whether curtailing new wells would harm private landowners as well as the development of cities like Liberal.

Under the new order from Division of Water Resources Chief Engineer Dave Pope, 35 of the district’s townships currently open to the drilling of new wells will be closed effective Friday.

For the other townships that are currently open, new wells will fall under “safe-yield” criteria, meaning that the water extracted annually from the Ogallala Aquifer must equal the amount by which the aquifer is recharged.

The availability of water from the aquifer is critical for farmers who need to irrigate crops in semi-arid southwestern Kansas, but the underground water is also a key resource for development of businesses and residential areas.

Brant Peterson, who is a farmer in Stanton County and board chairman of Groundwater Management District No. 3, understands both points of view about closing the aquifer to new drilling.

“As a farmer where I am at, I wanted to see it closed,” Peterson said. “As a representative of the district, there were people who didn’t want it closed. I was very torn about it.”

The Ogallala Aquifer is one of the richest underground water supplies in Kansas, but it has been shrinking for decades because of irrigation.

Most of the townships affected by the new regulations are in Morton, Stevens, Seward and Meade counties, one of the most saturated parts of the district. But new maps presented to the board in 2002 showed that some wells dropped 15 to 24 feet in a three- to four-year period, said Groundwater Management District No. 3 manager Hank Hansen.

The district’s board voted in August 2002 to recommend that all 52 townships be closed to new water appropriations. But that recommendation was rescinded this past December.

State Rep. Carl Holmes, R-Liberal, said he wondered how the new regulations would affect current efforts to attract dairies and ethanol plants to southwest Kansas.

“Dave has come back with a decision that he feels is fair, and I understand what the decision is, but I’m concerned about the economic impact, including on the Liberal area,” he said.

Liberal officials applied for additional water rights before the new rules were issued. If the applications are approved, Liberal should have enough water for expansion and growth for another 20 years, public works director Joe Sealey said.

“Anytime something you have is taken away, you can’t be satisfied with it,” Sealey said. “But we will live with it. We aren’t satisfied, but we will deal with it.”

Peterson called the issue “a very tough subject.” He said he polled water users in Stanton County and found that most favored closing the townships to new drilling.

“The reasons they gave them for why it shouldn’t be closed wasn’t enough to convince me it shouldn’t be closed for the good of the Ogallala and the good of Kansas,” he said.