2-1902. Legislative determination.
2-1902
2-1902. Legislative determination.
It is hereby declared, as a matter of legislative determination:
A. The condition. That the farm and grazing lands of the state
of Kansas are among the basic assets of the state and that the
preservation of these lands is necessary to protect and promote the
health, safety, and general welfare of its people; that improper
land-use practices have caused and have contributed to, and are now
causing and contributing to, a progressively more serious erosion of the
farm and grazing lands of this state by wind and water; that the
breaking of natural grass, plant, and forest cover have interfered with
the natural factors of soil stabilization, causing loosening of soil and
exhaustion of humus, and developing a soil condition that favors
erosion; that the topsoil is being blown and washed out of fields and
pastures; that there has been an accelerated washing of sloping fields;
that these processes of erosion by wind and water speed up with removal
of absorptive topsoil, causing exposure of less absorptive and less
protective but more erosive subsoil; that failure by any land occupier
to conserve the soil and control erosion upon said person's lands causes
a washing and blowing of soil and water from said person's lands onto
other lands and makes the conservation of soil, control of erosion,
prevention of floods and management, control and protection of water
and water quality on such other lands
difficult or impossible.
B. The consequences. That the consequences of such soil erosion
in the form of soil-blowing and soil-washing are the silting and
sedimentation of stream channels, reservoirs, dams, ditches, and
harbors; the loss of fertile soil material in dust storms; the piling up
of soil on lower slopes, and its deposit over alluvial plains; the
reduction in productivity or outright ruin of rich bottom lands by
overwash of poor subsoil material, sand, and gravel swept out of the
hills; deterioration of soil and its fertility, deterioration of crops
grown thereon, and declining acre yields despite development of
scientific processes for increasing such yields; loss of soil and water,
which causes destruction of food and cover for wild life; a blowing and
washing of soil into streams which silts over spawning beds, and
destroys water plants, diminishing the food supply of fish; a
diminishing of the underground water reserve, which causes water
shortages, intensified periods of drought, and causes crop failures; an
increase in the speed and volume of rainfall runoff, causing severe and
increasing floods, which bring suffering, disease, and death;
impoverishment of families attempting to farm eroding and eroded lands;
damage to roads, highways, railways, farm buildings, and other property
from floods and from dust storms; and losses in navigation,
hydroelectric power; municipal water supply, irrigation developments,
farming, and grazing.
C. The appropriate corrective methods. That to conserve soil
resources and control and prevent soil erosion and reduce flood damages
and to provide for the conservation, development, utilization and
disposal of water, it is necessary that land-use practices contributing
to soil wastage and soil erosion be discouraged and discontinued, and
appropriate soil-conserving land-use practices and structural works of
improvement be adopted and carried out; that among the procedures
necessary for widespread adoption, are the carrying on of engineering
operations such as the construction of terraces, terrace outlets,
check-dams, dikes, ponds, ditches, detention dams, grade stabilization
structures, channel improvements, floodways, water resource developments
and the like; the utilization of strip cropping; lister furrowing,
contour cultivating, and contour furrowing; land irrigation; seeding and
planting of waste, sloping, abandoned, or eroded lands to
water-conserving and erosion-preventing plants, trees, and grasses;
forestation and reforestation; rotation of crops; soil stabilization
with trees, grasses, legumes, and other thick-growing soil-holding
crops, retardation of runoff by increasing absorption of rainfall; and
retirement from cultivation of steep, highly erosive areas and areas now
badly gullied or otherwise eroded.
D. Declaration of policy. It is hereby declared to be the
policy of the legislature to provide for the conservation, use and
development of the soil and water resources of this state, and for the
control and prevention of soil erosion, flood damages and
injury to the quality of water, and thereby to
preserve natural resources, control floods, prevent impairment of dams
and reservoirs, assist in maintaining the navigability of rivers and
harbors, preserve wild life, protect the tax base, protect public lands,
and protect and promote the health, safety, and general welfare of the
people of this state.
History: L. 1937, ch. 5, § 2; L. 1955, ch. 7, § 1; L. 1979,
ch. 6, § 1; July 1.