Farmers
Are Drawing Groundwater From the Giant Ogallala Aquifer Faster Than Nature
Replaces It
Plains farmers cannot afford to continue pushing
land and water resources beyond their limits – especially in light of climate
change’s cumulative impact on the Central Plains.
August 19, 2018, 7:27
AM GMT
Every summer
the U.S. Central Plains go dry, leading farmers to tap into groundwater to
irrigate sorghum, soy, cotton, wheat and corn and maintain large herds of
cattle and hogs. As the heat rises, anxious irrigators gather to discuss
whether and how they should adopt more stringent conservation measures.
They know
that if they do not conserve, the Ogallala Aquifer, the source of their
prosperity, will go dry. The Ogallala, also known as the High Plains Aquifer,
is one of the largest underground freshwater sources in the world. It underlies
an estimated 174,000 square miles of the Central Plains and holds as much water as Lake Huron. It
irrigates portions of eight states, from Wyoming, South Dakota and Nebraska in
the north to Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Texas in the south.
But the
current drought plaguing the region is unusually strong and persistent, driving
farmers to rely more on the aquifer and sharpening the debate over its future.
A current assessment by the U.S. Drought Monitor, published by the
University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the United States Department of Agriculture and
the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, shows large swaths of the
southern plains experiencing drought
ranging from “severe” to “exceptional.”
These
worrisome prospects form the dramatic backdrop to “Ogallala: Water for a Dry Land,” now out in
its third edition. In it, my fellow historians John
Opie and Kenna Lang Archer and I set current
debates over the Ogallala Aquifer in the context of the region’s equally
conflicted past.
Draining
the source
In the
1880s, farmers in the region asserted that there was a steady movement of water
beneath their feet, which they called “underflow,” from the Rockies east.
Geologist F.N. Darton of the U.S. Geological Survey located the first outlines
of the aquifer near Ogallala, Nebraska. His discovery nourished the ambitions
of farmers and irrigation promoters. One booster, William E. Smythe, visited
Garden City, Kansas, and cheered the irrigated future. Pumping underground
water, he told his audience, would build “little homes of pleasing
architecture. We will surround them with pretty lawns and fringe them with
trees and hedges … in a new Kansas dedicated to industrial independence.”
Ogallala Aquifer water-level changes from
predevelopment (about 1950) to 2015. USGS
That bucolic
vision took decades to realize. Windmills could only pump so much water, which
constrained the amount of land farmers could put into production. And the
Ogallala’s sand and gravel composition slowed the downward flow of surface
waters to refill it, even in wet seasons.
This did not
matter until farmers started adopting better drilling technology, gas-powered
water pumps and high-tech irrigation systems after World War II. These advances
turned the Central Plains into the world’s breadbasket and meat market, annually generating US$20 billion worth
of foodstuffs.
As more
pumps were drilled into the aquifer to capture its flow, some started to come
up dry, which led to more drilling and pumping. Between the late 19th century
and 2005, the U.S. Geological Survey estimates
irrigation depleted the aquifer by 253 million acre-feet – about 9 percent of
its total volume. And the pace is accelerating. Analyzing federal data, The
Denver Post found that the aquifer shrank twice as fast from 2011 through 2017 as
it had over the previous 60 years.
The current
drought is only adding to these woes. University of California-Irvine
hydrologist Jay Famiglietti has identified the Ogallala region and California’s
Central Valley as the two most overheated and water-starved areas in the
United States.
Relying
on technological fixes
This is not
the first time that humans have pushed ecosystems on the Central Plains to the
breaking point. Starting in the late 19th century, settler-colonists plowed up
native grasses that protected the soil. When a series of intense droughts
struck in the 1930s, dried-out topsoil was primed to erode in the infamous Dust
Bowl. Howling windstorms widely known as “black blizzards” blotted out the sun,
blowing away exposed soil and displacing much of the human population.
Farmers who
hung on through World War II placed their hope in highly engineered solutions,
such as high-powered pumps and center-pivot irrigation systems. These
innovations, along with ongoing experiments to determine the most profitable
kind of crops to grow and animals to raise, profoundly altered global food
systems and the lives and livelihoods of Plains farmers.
Today some
advocates support a similar fix for farmers’ water needs: The so-called Great Canal of Kansas, which would pump vast
quantities of water from the Missouri River in the east over 360 miles west to
the most arid Kansas counties. However, this project could cost up to $20 billion to build and require annual energy
outlays of $500 million. It is unlikely to be constructed, and would
be a Band-aid solution if it were.
Crop circles in Finney
County, Kansas, denote irrigated plots using water from the Ogallala
Aquifer. NASA
The
end of irrigation?
In my view,
Plains farmers cannot afford to continue pushing land and water resources
beyond their limits – especially in light of climate change’s cumulative impact on the
Central Plains. For example, a recent
study posits that as droughts bake the land, lack of moisture
in the soil actually spikes temperatures. And as the air heats up, it further
desiccates the soil.
This vicious
cycle will accelerate the rate of depletion. And once the Ogallala is emptied,
it could take 6,000 years to recharge naturally. In the
words of Brent Rogers, a director of Kansas Groundwater
Management District 4, there are “too many straws in too small of a cup.”
Some
far-sighted farmers are responding to these interlocking challenges. Even as
they pursue efficiencies in irrigation, many are shifting
from water-intense crops like cotton to wheat. Still others, notably in west
Texas, are converting back to non-irrigated dryland agriculture – a recognition of
the stark limitations of irrigation dependency. Farmers who are depleting other aquifers in Latin America,
eastern Europe, the Middle East and Asia could face similar choices.
Whether
these initiatives will become widespread, or can sustain agriculture on the
Central Plains, is an open question. But should instead farmers and ranchers
drain the Ogallala Aquifer in pursuit of quick profits, the region may never
recover.
Char Miller, W. M. Keck Professor of
Environmental Analysis and History, Pomona College
This article
was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
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