The Arkansas Natural Resources Commission and the federal Natural Resources Conservation Service are getting ready to start a new cost-sharing program with some of the state's farmers to better measure how much water is used on fields.
The commission worked with the U.S. Geological Survey last year to install 65 flow meters on wells in the state. Edward Swaim, head of the commission's Water Resources Division, estimated that with the project's $200,000, the commission and the federal conservation service can measure output on as many as 150 wells, assuming they are of average size.
The commission and the conservation service are each supplying $100,000 toward the project, and farmers who wish to install meters on their wells must pay for half of the cost. The meters are available to farmers in critical-groundwater areas, which include 15 counties on the state's eastern side. Farmers would apply for the meters through their county conservation district.
The project, agreed upon at the end of the federal fiscal year in September, is part of the Natural Resources Commission's desire to better gauge water use in farming-heavy areas of the state and is part of farmers' desires to measure more precisely how much water is used and needed for their acreage.
The commission's 2014 Arkansas Water Plan determined that water use in much of the Delta was unsustainable in the long run. Farmers disputed some of the water plan's assessments on water usage, arguing that data the farmers supplied to the commission weren't precise and often overestimated water use.
"It's not realistic that everybody's going to put a meter on a well," Swaim said, noting that farmers have about 50,000 wells in Arkansas. "These are very small-scale efforts to calibrate our estimated use."
Farmers will report water use based on the meters, but the commission will have technicians periodically check on the meters' conditions and read them.
The meters also serve as a model for other farms to use at their own expense, Swaim said. Farmers can use them to better understand their water costs, and the state can use them to better understand how water is used and may be used in the future in the state's biggest water-using industry: agriculture.
"To us, we're interested in the conservation side," said Walt Delp, state conservation engineer for the Natural Resources Conservation Service. "A farmer needs to know how much water they're putting out, if they're conserving, if what they're doing year to year is increasing efficiency."
The conservation service, which operates out of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, has similar irrigation efficiency and measurement projects in Arkansas and other states, Delp said.
For Arkansas County row-crop farmer Terry Dabbs, the project gives him and the state better data to more effectively do their jobs.
"It lets me check more closely and monitor my well as to how many gallons of water per minute it's pumping," Dabbs said, "so that helps me in making decisions on my irrigation practices."
Dabbs is a board member for the Arkansas Farm Bureau and a participant in other projects to measure water quantity and quality at his farm.
The project also could help ward off any regulations on water use, Dabbs said. Swaim has said the state isn't exploring regulations and doesn't plan to.
"We don't have regulations right now," Dabbs said. "Nobody wants to get to that point. But we do need to know how much is being pumped."
The meters will go into use as state officials inch closer to completing two major water projects -- Bayou Meto and Grand Prairie. The projects have been in the works for years and are intended to make water use more sustainable in east Arkansas.
The Grand Prairie project will include building new reservoirs between the White and Arkansas rivers, doubling the amount of usable, above-ground water storage. The Bayou Meto project will divert Arkansas River water as part of a process to convert groundwater to surface water for irrigation.
Swaim has said he expects to start pumping water to farmers from the Bayou Meto and Grand Prairie projects within three years. He said he thinks the well metering will give officials a better idea of how much water is being used in time for contracts to be signed on pumping water from the Bayou Meto or Grand Prairie projects.
"We have a very good idea in Arkansas of how much water we use," Swaim said.
With more meters on wells, it will be even better, he said.
State Desk on 01/04/2017