CHEYENNE BOTTOMS — Jason Wagner looked out over the east side of the West Hub at Cheyenne Bottoms Wednesday morning and sighed. A gush of water was spilling into the inlet canal leading to Pool 1A. Behind him were the twin pumps running, finally, at full speed to deliver 64,000 gallons per minute past the gate. “I’m happy,” Wagner said over the rumble. “We’ve been really needing this.”

Wednesday was a full-speed test run, the first since the pumps were installed a year ago. Until that time, Wagner and his crew were relying on other means to continue their management efforts.

Wednesday’s test was attended by officials from the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks, as well as the contractors and other principals involved in the initial project. Wagner said he had been holding back water in the inlet canal for the past few days to perform the test.  

A major facet to the hub’s operation will be getting water moved out of Pool 2 north of the hub, to be stored in storage pools and in Pool 1A a mile down the inlet canal to the east. With the water moved, staff can resume dredging and weed removal efforts to be ready for bird migration in the fall.

More water works

Recent rains brought a minimal amount of water to divert from the Wet Walnut, which is part of normal water flow at the Bottoms. The drought, however, produced one of the driest summers on record in 2022. It did provide the opportunity for management operations as several of the pools were dry.

By June,  water was available in the Wet Walnut, and it was diverted into Pool 1A, Wagner noted. With the lack of soil moisture, the water mostly saturated the ground and only put sheet water in roughly 2/3 of that pool.  “Although the rains failed to fill the Bottoms, they have fallen in the right locations to prime the landscape for future runoff events,” he said. “It is still going to take some very significant rains to fill the Bottoms.”