We’re continuing a series exploring how communities in Kansas Groundwater Management District #1 are working together to address water challenges and protect water for future generations. Throughout the series, you’ll hear from local leaders, producers and scientists who are turning conversations and real-world decisions into long-term solutions.
This story is about results and rewards: what success looks like when Q-Stable moves from an idea into something measurable and when the numbers start to change. Be sure to listen to the companion podcast at the end of the article.
Results and Rewards
In groundwater management, success rarely shows up all at once. It shows up slowly, through data, adjustments, and decisions that start adding up over time. For Wes McCary, technology projects coordinator with the Kansas Water Office, those small changes are where real progress toward Q-Stable begins.
“Q-Stable is a metric,” McCary said. “Then we have to figure out the ways and means to achieve Q-Stable.”
McCary works on the technology side of water management: feasibility studies, pilot projects, system evaluations, and tools that help producers and water managers understand how water is actually being used, and how efficiently it’s being turned into economic value.
“I’m trying to sit in the middle and bring it together,” he said.
That balance matters in western Kansas, where groundwater isn’t just an agricultural input, it’s the foundation of entire communities.
“Our only water supply — municipal, domestic, irrigation, stock, and industrial —is dependent on the Ogallala Aquifer,” said Katie Durham, district manager for Western Kansas Groundwater Management District #1 (GMD1).
What “Results” Actually Mean
When talking about results and rewards, McCary says success depends on perspective.
“If you’re talking about irrigators and producers,” he said, “they want to continue to irrigate. They want a return on investment.”
That return, he explained, comes down to what he calls water duty, not just how much water is pumped, but how efficiently those gallons are converted into dollars.
“Am I 50 percent efficient? Sixty? Ninety?” McCary said. “That’s what producers define as winning.”
For water managers, success looks different. Durham often describes Q-Stable as a water budget, a way to understand how much water is available, how much is being used, and what the Ogallala Aquifer can realistically sustain over time.
“You want to find an equilibrium where you’re not pumping more than the aquifer is able to maintain,” Durham said.
Q-Stable, McCary said, is the first statewide framework that allows both perspectives to exist together, from individual wells to entire districts.
“We’ve never had a statewide metric that could scale up or down like this,” he said.
A Fitbit for Water
One of the clearest signs of progress, McCary said, is how producers respond once they have better information.
Over the past 18 months, nearly 200 irrigation system evaluations have been completed across the High Plains Aquifer in Kansas, with roughly 130 to 140 conducted in GMD1 alone. Those assessments examine wells, power plants, pivots, and uniformity across fields, identifying inefficiencies that often go unnoticed.
“It’s like getting a health checkup,” McCary said. “Or wearing a Fitbit. Am I on target? Am I off target? What are my trends?”
What those evaluations consistently reveal, he said, is opportunity.
“We’ve found that we’re leaving dollars on the table,” he said.
Not because producers are careless, but because many systems were built decades ago and maintained just well enough to keep running.
“We’re literally running on 30- and 40-year-old technology in a lot of cases,” McCary said. “You can only re-machine and re-sleeve that stuff so many times.”
Durham says that kind of data-driven insight is what helps ease fear around change.
“At first, conversations around conservation were off-putting,” she said. “But once people understood the data and realized they had a say in how plans were developed, that helped build trust.”
From Awareness to Action
The shift McCary sees isn’t just technical, it’s psychological. Producers who receive system evaluations don’t feel punished or pressured, he said. They feel empowered.
“Nobody’s lecturing them,” McCary said. “Nobody’s doing a data grab.”
Instead, evaluations are paired with targeted cost-share dollars that allow producers to fix specific problems without carrying the full financial burden themselves.
“That’s a win-win,” he said.
Just as important, the evaluations establish a baseline and a way to measure improvement over time.
“After changes are made, we go back and re-measure,” McCary said. “Have I actually improved?”
Durham says seeing those improvements, especially from neighbors, helps momentum build.
“When people see their neighbors make it work, using less water and still producing strong yields, that word of mouth is incredibly impactful,” she said.
Growing Momentum
McCary is careful not to speak for the district’s official metrics, but he says the momentum in GMD1 is clear. Producers are using evaluation reports to guide upgrades, retiring inefficiencies, and in some cases investing their own dollars beyond available cost-share funds.
“We have large operations going out and doing self-assessments now,” he said. “They want to know how all of their systems are performing.”
That shift toward tracking, measuring, and reassessing is critical for efforts toward Q-Stable and long-term stabilization, especially in areas where users must move together toward shared, locally informed targets.
“You can’t have some people pulling harder than others,” McCary said. “That’s how you end up with a tragedy of the commons.”
The Real Reward: Control
For McCary, the biggest reward of stabilizing water use isn’t a single metric, it’s control.
“The fate’s in their own hands,” he said. “Either play fourth-quarter football or stand a bigger chance of losing.”
He’s blunt about the stakes. There’s only so much water available, and older systems and habits can only be stretched so far.
“We kicked the can down the road for two or three generations,” McCary said. “This generation has to decide whether we fix the problem or keep patching it.”
That decision affects more than individual operations. In western Kansas, groundwater underpins entire communities, something Durham says keeps the focus on the long term.
“It’s important that we stabilize and slow down depletion so we have resources for future generations,” she said.
Becoming the Heroes of the Story
McCary believes Kansas has an opportunity many regions don’t, a culture of measurement, accountability, and local decision-making already in place.
“If we do this right,” he said, “we don’t get labeled as the depleters of the aquifer.”
Instead, agriculture becomes part of the solution.
“We get to be the heroes of our own story,” McCary said. “We saw a problem, we addressed it, and we won.”
To hear more from Wes McCary, listen to the episode below. In the final story, we explore what the future of water looks like in western Kansas.