Topeka — Having already paid $35 million to Kansas because of a lawsuit over the Arkansas River, Colorado covered an additional $1.1 million in expenses incurred to make sure it doesn't take too much water, Atty. Gen. Phill Kline said Friday.
Kline said the payment represented another significant victory in the lawsuit, filed by Kansas with the U.S. Supreme Court in 1984. The nation's highest court sided with Kansas in 1995, but damages weren't settled until late in 2004.
But even Colorado's big payment last year didn't settle all issues, because the two states must monitor water use. The latest payment helps reimburse Kansas for hiring experts to deal with technical issues.
Kline said those issues dealt with calculating how much water Colorado farmers were taking and how much must be allowed to flow in the Arkansas across the state line, and figuring out how to account for evaporation that occurs when water is pumped into farm fields for irrigation.
Had Kansas not prevailed on the technical issues, it would have seen significantly less water from Colorado, Kline said.
"There are other issues that are ongoing," Kline said.
The Arkansas, a tributary of the Mississippi River, flows 1,450 miles east and southeast through Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma and Arkansas.
Kansas and Colorado have fought over the river's water for more than a century and first took a dispute to the Supreme Court in 1902. In the 1984 lawsuit, Kansas charged that Colorado farmers had taken too much water out of the river in violation of their water compact.
Kline said two-thirds of the additional $1.1 million would go to local water projects, with the state retaining the remaining third, about $366,000, for its water quality and conservation programs.
Comments
erichaar 11 years ago
Thank you AGAIN Attorney General Phill Kline for your hard work for the state of Kansas.
GOPConservative 11 years ago
It's good to see Kline doing something constructive for a change rather than continuing being to be embarrassment for our State.
With Fred Phelps protesting funerals, the KBOE trying to take us back to the Middle Ages, Ryun talking in tongues while getting kickbacks from criminals, and Kline's own weird antics, Kansas is now viewed as a sanctuary for hatemongers, troglodytes, crooks and crackpots.
Once we vote out Kline, Ryun and the ignoramuses on the KBOE in this fall's election, we can start repairing the damage and prove to the world that most Kansans are sane, honest and decent.
just_another_bozo_on_this_bus 11 years ago
Sounds like at best Kline was caretaker of past agreements and settlements. But I guess if all you have to campaign on otherwise is various forms of wingnut grandstanding, you take credit for anything and everything.
Godot 11 years ago
GOPC wrote: "Once we vote out Kline, Ryun and the ignoramuses on the KBOE in this fall's election, we can start repairing the damage and prove to the world that most Kansans are sane, honest and decent."
Ooops, you just revealed the motive behind the relentless negative national press campaign that has been waged by the liberals against Kansas.
Guess what, DEMliberal, the rest of country does not get to vote in Kansas elections. The only advantage you and yours have gained is to set Her Kathiness up for her vice presidential run, painting her as a veritable liberal saint for having tried, but failed, to pull Kansas out of the dark ages.
Christine Pennewell Davis 11 years ago
Well I think it is funny that either state thinks they really own a river. There is no stronger force than water make it mad it mught revolt.
GOPConservative 11 years ago
Godot, you must be joking to call real Conservatives and real Republicans like me a DEMliberal. LOL.
That's rich, especially considering that I have spoken out repeatedly for traditional Republican and Conservative principles like fiscal responsibility, lower taxes, free enterprise, limited government, privacy, freedom of press, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of and from religion as well as all the other principles that theocratic socialists like Kline, Ryun and the six crackpots on the KBOE abhor.
If your point is to gloat that the theocratic socialists subversively took over the Conservative and Republican labels in Kansas, go ahead.
You will find out in November that mainstream Republicans, Conservatives and Christians have had enough of the anti-Republican, anti-Conservative and anti-Christian beliefs and policies of the lunatic fring as well as their blatant corruption and laundered money
Your ridiculous implication that Kansans should be proud of Phelps, Kline, Ryun and the six KBOE troglodytes is laughable.
moderation 11 years ago
You Kline-haters never cease to amaze me. Give the guy some credit. Sounds like he's doing a good job.
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