The residents, farmers, business owners, and concerned citizens of Southwest Kansas and the broader High Plains region, hereby petition Governor Laura Kelly, the Kansas Legislature, the Kansas Water Authority, Southwest Kansas Groundwater Management District No. 3 (GMD3), and all relevant state and local officials to immediately deny any permits, zoning approvals, or water allocations for proposed data center projects in Southwest Kansas that would draw water from the Ogallala Aquifer.

The Ogallala is the lifeblood of our region. It sustains our family farms, ranches, communities, schools, and economy. For decades, Kansas farmers in Southwest Kansas have been responsible stewards of this shared resource, even as the aquifer has declined dramatically. Now, GMD3 is proposing the first-ever mandatory reductions in irrigation pumping—nearly 30% (specifically a 27.7% cut over 20 years, with gradual 4–6% reductions every five years)—to stabilize water levels in parts of the aquifer that are dropping 2–4 feet per year. These cuts will force difficult choices on Kansas family farms, threatening crop yields, livestock operations, local businesses and jobs, and the rural communities that depend on the agricultural industry. 

At the same time, massive data centers are being developed or proposed across the Ogallala region, consuming enormous volumes of water for cooling—often millions of gallons per day.

 In Amarillo, Texas, the Fermi America / Project Matador data center campus has requested 2.5 million gallons of water per day initially, with potential increases to 5.5–10 million gallons daily, drawn from municipal supplies sourced from the same aquifer. This is equivalent to the daily water use of thousands of households or entire small towns, and much of it is lost to evaporation.

Meanwhile, Oklahoma draws freely from the same aquifer with effectively zero mandatory restrictions or statewide pumping cuts comparable to those now facing Kansas farmers. Current Oklahoma law permits withdrawals that exceed natural recharge rates, and recent legislative efforts to impose stricter monitoring or limits have failed. 

This is profoundly unfair. Kansas family farms and rural communities are being asked to bear the full burden of conservation—sacrificing irrigation, livelihoods, and our agricultural heritage—while out-of-state data centers and neighboring states continue unrestricted or high-volume extraction from the same finite aquifer. Data centers provide few local jobs relative to their massive resource demands, do not support food production or rural economies in the same way, and accelerate depletion that could render large areas of Southwest Kansas unsustainable for farming within our lifetimes.

 

We demand the following immediate actions:

 

1.  Deny all permits for any data center or large-scale industrial water user in Southwest Kansas that relies on Ogallala Aquifer water (directly or via municipal supplies).

 

2.  Prioritize agriculture in all water allocation decisions under the Kansas Water Plan and GMD3 rules. Family farms must come first.

 

3.  Require full transparency and environmental review for any proposed data center, including independent analysis of long-term aquifer impact, water recycling feasibility, and alternatives (e.g., closed-loop or non-aquifer cooling systems).

 

4.  Pursue interstate coordination with Texas and Oklahoma to ensure equitable, sustainable management of the shared Ogallala Aquifer rather than shifting the entire conservation burden onto Kansas producers.

 

5.  Reject any state incentives or tax breaks that would subsidize data centers at the expense of our water resources and agricultural economy.

 

The future of Southwest Kansas depends on protecting the Ogallala Aquifer for the people who have stewarded it for generations—not sacrificing it for short-term industrial gains. Our farms, families, and communities cannot—and will not—bear the entire weight of these data centers and the misuse of our shared water.

We urge you to act now to protect Kansas agriculture, our rural way of life, and the long-term viability of the High Plains.