Southwest Kansas residents are making an effort to remember a river that helped shape communities in the area. The Arkansas River today has run dry in the region, but has left a significant impact, leading locals looking for conservation and recharge efforts.

DODGE CITY, Kansas — To enter most towns in southwest Kansas, one will first drive across bridges seemingly built over sand and briar.

Tanner Rutschman, a city engineer for Dodge City, jokes that no one really knows what it is.

“It doesn’t look like it,” Rutschman said, “but I have to tell people when they come to town that they just drove over the Arkansas River.”

Rutschman and the city are proposing a new wastewater plan that could help conserve water for the town on the High Plains. That plan will feature the bone-dry Arkansas

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