Flex Accounts
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. The deadline to apply for a flex account is October 10 for use the following year. An application form 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?" 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.
Individuals interested in flex accounts may also want to refer to the statutes, rules and regulations that govern them.
Multi-Year Flex Accounts - K.S.A. 82a-736 (See Kansas Water Appropriation Act)
- 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.