Case Study: Thirty Years of Sustaining High Plains Ground Water with Wastewater Irrigation.

1.5 SW, SSp

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Treated municipal wastewater from the City of Dodge City (population 27,000) has been applied to southwest Kansas cropland since 1985. Over time, the system has become essentially a “closed loop”. Today, ground water is pumped from wells underlying Nicholson Farms, piped to the National Beef Producers facility (2900 employees), used for food processing sanitation, discharged to the treatment facility where it is mixed with municipal wastewater, stored in aerobic lagoons, then used for irrigating 1200 ha (3000 acres) of corn, alfalfa, and other crops on Nicholson Farms.  The effluent is an alternative source of irrigation water (6.1 x 10⁹ L/yr, 1.6 billion gal/yr), nutrients, and potentially methane, but does present salinity and nutrient pollution hazards.  Over time, it has been necessary to adapt to changes in the effluent composition, treatment methods, cropping systems, and weather. We will discuss the monitoring and management strategies we have employed to maintain the resilience and sustainability of the project over the past thirty years and into the future.