What about at night? Or when it’s cloudy?
Somewhere like Kansas, wind power and battery based storage may be more effective.
Here's a map of pumped storage hydro potential; note how dense the potential is throughout most of the Western US. https://maps.nrel.gov/psh
Depending on how you measure, lots of states are flatter than Kansas. Florida is the flattest state by nearly all measures. Illinois is crazy flat as well.
Plus, when the hydro storage fails and floods a town, that’s still pretty bad.