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Liquid assetFriday, August 13, 2004 3:05:50 PM While many agreed the issue has been long approaching, solutions and experiences varied with water rights. One frequent topic was a state program to buy water rights and retire them while farmers move from irrigated farming to dryland operations. Don Paxson, vice chair of the Kansas Water Authority, said such a buying program, though, would need $426 million in the state's 2006 budget to work as designed. "We know that will be difficult, but there's nothing more important than water folks," he said. Finney County Commissioner Cliff Mayo said he still remembers when the Arkansas River flowed through Garden City and the feeling that the area would never run out of water. "Now we haven't run out, but we have made a dent in it," he said. Now, he said, water is in a precarious balance between irrigation farming and industry. Jeff Whitham, Garden City mayor and CEO of Western State Bank, said the a uifer has figured more and more into discussions, specifically if a transition program to lessen water use can move gradually enough to help his customers manage their financial affairs. "We sit around and we talk about, ?What is our risk as loaners and as businessmen in western Kansas ? "' he said. Ray Purdy, president of Home National Bank in Garden City, agreed. "In land transition, one of the things that will be affected besides the banking is the tax base of your counties," he said. "Things cannot happen overnight." =Pathy Clark, director of the state's Agricultural Products Division under the Department of Commerce, also cautioned against moving too quickly to retire water ri hts. "Stop and think what's going to happen if you take away a resource that makes this economy hum too quickly," she said. Like other regions of the United States, she said, the economic model needs to change for more Page 2 of 4 http://www.gctelegram.com/news/2004/august/13/storyl.htrnl 8/16/2004