Flex Accounts

Please note:  The Kansas Legislature made several changes to the water right flex account program through The following link will open in a new browser tab or window.Senate Bill 124, which was signed by Governor Brownback on May 19, 2011.  While the revised law is expected to be effective no earlier than July 1, 2011, DWR is working diligently to update the flex account term permit application form and existing flex account rules and regulations to match the changes in the law.  These items will also be posted on this webpage, as soon as they are available. Please contact your local field office for more information about this program. 

Earlier information:

The Legislature authorized the Kansas Department of Agriculture's Division of Water Resources to offer some flexibility in the annual use of water rights in exchange for conserving water over a five-year period. Multiyear flex accounts are now available for this purpose.  An application formThe preceding link will open in a new browser tab or window. is available at the Division of Water Resources field offices, the main DWR office in Topeka and online.

We have developed a brochure, "Water Rights Flex Accounts: Opportunity or Not?The preceding link will open in a new browser tab or window." that has examples of how flex accounts can be used. It is designed to help water users decide if flex accounts are a management tool useful to them.

Doug Helmke of the Kansas Rural Water Association also wrote an article titled, "Flex Your Water Right Muscles With a Flex Account Term PermitThe preceding link will open in a new browser tab or window.," for the KRWA publication Lifeline covering the use of flex account applications primarily from the perspective of a public water supplier. 

Individuals interested in flex accounts may want to refer to the statutes, rules and regulations that govern them.

Multi-Year Flex Accounts - K.S.A. 82a-736 (of the Kansas Water Appropriation Act )

Specific Rules and Regulations pertaining to flex accounts:

  • Definitions - K.A.R. 5-16-1
  • Fee to establish a flex account - K.A.R. 5-16-2
  • Establishing a flex account - K.A.R. 5-16-3
  • Conditions on the term permit - K.A.R. 5-16-4
  • Maximum annual quantity - K.A.R. 5-16-5
  • Flex accounts and term permits - K.A.R. 5-16-6
  • Conditions under which a base water right may be exercised - K.A.R. 5-16-7

Some important limitations of flex accounts should be understood before deciding to submit an application:

  • The authorized quantity is not used to determine the allowable amount of the flex account.
  • The five-year amount allowed is five times the average annual amount actually used from 1992 through 2002, less 10 percent for conservation.
  • Any use that exceeds what is authorized under the water right will not be considered in the average. The annual diversion is limited only by the total amount allowed for the five-year flex account.
  • When diversions for the first few years under a flex account are substantially larger than average, irrigation would not be lawful in later years.  

Flex accounts also offer some important opportunities:

  • They allow a user to exceed the authorized quantity of the water right in dry years, in anticipation of a decrease in use in normal years within the five-year period.
  • They may allow full irrigation in some years and no irrigation expense in the remainder of the five-year period for water rights with authorized quantities that were not fully perfected and are substantially lower than the net irrigation requirement.
  • Users who have limited authorized quantities for their authorized acres could benefit.

Please contact your field office for any additional information regarding Flex Accounts.

Kansas Department of Agriculture