TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) Kansas water officials are preparing to update a study to determine the feasibility of building a 360-mile aqueduct to tap the Missouri River to support agriculture in western parts of the state.
Tracy Streeter, director of the Kansas Water Office, told legislators on Tuesday that the study would begin next year.
How much the aqueduct would cost is to be determined. A study in 1982 pegged the price at $3.6 billion to construct either an open-air canal or enclosed pipeline. Reservoirs would be constructed to siphon water from the Missouri before it is pumped west, ending in another large reservoir near Utica in western Kansas between Great Bend and Scott City.
The project was one of several options that were considered in a study authorized under federal law in 1976.
