(Tracy Streeter) We're wrapping up the fifth annual Governors Water Conference here in Manhattan. The focus this year has been on the development of the regional action plans that have been created all over the state. We had 60 some action plans implementing the goals contained in the Water Vision, so we spent a lot of time focusing on those efforts, which have been extraordinary. We just completed the first phase of the dredging project that John Redmond started in May, completed ahead of schedule and on budget. We removed 3 million cubic feet of sediment from the reservoir and deposited them at the disposal sites downstream. That's gone extraordinarily well. We continue to focus on stream bank erosion above John Redmond and Perry and Tuttle Creek reservoirs. We've got active projects going on there, so that's kind of a highlight in the eastern part of the state. Out west, we've got a lot of momentum going on water conservation areas. GMD No. 4 up in Colby is expanding their local enhanced management area to go district wide, spring boarding off the successes of their initial LEMAs in Sheridan County, and so we see some great efforts going on up in northwest Kansas. Water conservation areas are sprouting up all over the place. We’ve got one in Wichita County. We've got some down in the Upper Ark Region as well. The other exciting thing we've done this year has been water technology farms. We've had three field days on the three farms out, two in Finney County and one in Pawnee County. Those have been huge successes. We're actually seeing some very good preliminary results from those technology farms where we were able to get the farmer involved, was able to maintain yield and curtail water usage by quite a bit. We're going to have more details that will be shared not only at this conference but in the future on what actually happened at those technology farms this year. It's like the domino effect a little bit. You start seeing conservation efforts pop up. The one in Wichita County is a good model where there's a group forming a committee in Wichita County for a countywide water conservation area. They're going to have a public meeting up here in the very near future to try to encourage more of their neighbors and irrigators in Wichita County to join them in implementing a conservation area in that part of the state. You just start to see this thing snowball, and I think that's what we're seeing. This is a great time after harvest to get connected with these producers and start talking about their 2017 plans. There will be a lot of dialog with those that are interested in getting their Water Conservation Area established and ready to go when they start planning season next spring. We want to expand technology farms. We're seeing a nice effort coming together up in Goodland with Northwest Tech and Tri-State Irrigation where they're going to use the students at Northwest Tech in their precision ag program to actually go out and not only man the technology farms and collect the data, but they're going to learn the skill so when they get out of school, they're ready to go out into irrigated agriculture and be seasoned veterans at running this equipment and operating it to its maximum effectiveness. We're really excited about that as well. Kansas Water Office website is a great place. You can click on The Vision. You can see about the Blue Ribbon Funding Task Force, the education strategy. I think we'll have presentations from this conference will be posted to our website, so you can either click on the conference or click on The Vision and probably find about anything you need to know about Kansas Water.

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