Kansas tribes navigate future water problems without representation on statewide task force

Joseph "Zeke" Rupnick is chairman of Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation. He explained to a legislative committee on Nov. 3, 2025, in Topeka, Kansas, the importance of water sovereignty. (Photo by Cami Koons for Kansas Reflector)

TOPEKA — Joseph Rupnick, chairman of the Prairie Band Potawatomi Tribal Council, is disappointed that the recently formed Kansas water task force does not include any Native American representation.

He said so at the group’s Monday meeting.

“We asked for that position when this committee first started,” Rupnick said during testimony.

But the 16-member task force contains only legislators and legislatively appointed members, none of them representatives from any of Kansas’ four federally recognized tribes.

As Kansas navigates water quality and quantity issues and plans for the future, the state’s Native populations don’t have a seat at the table.

The task force has met five times in rotating locations across the state since its creation through legislation that passed in April, hearing about water quality and quantity issues. It must submit a preliminary report by the end of January and a final report to the governor and the Legislature by the end of January 2027. The document will guide water policy and funding priorities.

There should be Native representation on the task force, Rupnick argued, because of the Winters doctrine, which ensures reservations are vested with the water rights necessary to support tribes’ activities on a reservation.

Rep. Ken Rahjes, an Agra Republican, responded to Rupnick’s concerns, saying if everyone who wanted a seat at the table received one, the task force could fill an arena.

“This is the size that we came up to,” he said

Rahjes, who said he wrote the bill that created the task force, vowed not to limit debate or conversation.

“Just because you don’t have a seat here,” Rahjes said, “doesn’t mean you’re not listened to and being taken care of.”

Maximizing sovereignty

The Prairie Band Potawatomi’s goal is to become water sovereign, Rupnick said.

That would involve creating its own water source and treatment plant and factoring in local, state and federal interests. Rupnick highlighted Native water rights, which predate the state of Kansas and have been strengthened through courts and legislation over the past century, as key to understanding how a tribe could become water sovereign.

One way to achieve that goal is with federal action creating a settlement meant to resolve water rights disputes The payments could then be used to create water resource infrastructure on tribal land.

One Kansas tribe, the Kickapoo, is currently negotiating to obtain a Congressionally recognized water rights settlement. It’s at step two in a four-step process.

Tribes must go through pre-assessment, pre-negotiation and negotiation before reaching a settlement and subsequent implementation.

“The federal negotiating process is decades long,” said Stephanie Zehren, special water counsel to the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation.

Of the United States’ 584 federally recognized tribes, 39 tribes — largely in the northwest and southwest — have sanctioned water rights through Congressionally or administratively approved settlements.

“That leaves the vast majority unquantified,” said Zehren. “The fact that a water right is not quantified does not change the fact that it exists.”

Tribes inherently have water rights, Zehren said, which often precede any existing rights. But the federal process is a major undertaking that requires time and money. Often, navigating the checkerboard of governance, which includes tribal, state, municipal and federal jurisdictions, is the best available option for urgent needs.

Government-to-government relationships are much more effective “because we are hamstrung by how much progress we can make,” said Missty Slater, chairwoman of the Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska.

She said the tribe would like to continue its partnership with other governments, including the task force and the state of Kansas, “so when the water comes to us, we might have less work to do to improve its quality.”

Slater said the tribe has taken proactive measures to improve water quality, including treatment, testing and a transition to regenerative farming, which reduces the need for water treatment.

“We are committed, as water is sacred, to doing what we can to make sure all of our water is the highest quality,” Slater said.

Both she and Rupnick said their tribes were considering pursuing a federal settlement.

“I cannot commit to anything right now,” Slater said, “but we are exploring that, as it would maximize our tribal sovereignty.”

Sen. Michael Fagg, an El Dorado Republican, asked earlier in the meeting how much land in Kansas is tribal and didn’t receive a definitive answer. In many ways, tribal land extends beyond the bounds of a reservation, Rupnick said.

Zehren later said that tribes need to be factored into the task force’s work regardless of what percentage of Kansas land is tribal.

“Trying to suggest that in order to protect and preserve these rights in the future requires a quantification is fairly offensive,” she said

The task force’s next meeting is scheduled for Nov. 19.