Long ago, the middle of the North American continent was a treeless prairie covered by tall grasses and roaming buffalo. When European settlers came, they called this area the Great American Desert. Today, this "desert" is covered with fields of wheat, corn, and alfalfa made possible by center-pivot irrigation. My grandfather used to sell center-pivot systems and when my family drove to my grandparent's home in Nebraska, we would count how many "sprinklers" were watering each section of land. At the time, I didn't know that this water was being pumped from somethng called the Ogallala Aquifer, a huge underground water supply. Throughout the years, this aquifer has made the Great American Desert one of the best farming areas in the world. Unfortunately, the Ogallala Aquifer's future as a valuable resource is in jeopardy, unless citizens of the Plains states reduce their water consumption.
Background of the Problem
To understand why the problem is important, it is necessary to know some basic facts about the Ogalla Aquifer. This underground reservoir covers 174,000 square miles. According to John Opie, author of Ogallala: Water for a Dry Land, the Ogallala was formed over the course of millions of years as the land flooded, dried out, and flooded again. As centuries passed, glaciers melted, carrying water, silt, and rocks from the Rockies down to the Great Plains to form the Ogalla. Dirt, clay, and rocks accumulated above it so that the waters of the Ogallala can now be reached at depths of 300 feet beneath the surface (29-35). Some people think that the Ogallala is a huge underground lake, but this idea is wrong. As Erla Zwingle puts it, an aquifer such as the Ogallala is like a "gigantic underground sponge"(83). The water fills in the spaces between the sand, silt, clay, and gravel that make up the Ogallala formation. This 1,000 feet; the average thickness, however, is about 200 feet (Zwingle 85). The aquifer reaches its deepest points under the state of Nebraska, which is not surprising because most of the because Ogallala's water lies beneath this state. The rest lies under Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, and Wyoming.
Th Ogallala Aquifer is the largest "underground sponge" in the United States. It contains more that 977 trillion gallons, or three billion acre-feet of water. (An acre-foot...
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... as well as the survival of the farms and the cities of the Great Anerican Desert, depends on it.
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The California water drought has been declared a crisis by the governor of California. 2013 was the driest year on record, and California could be running out of water. Californians should be water wise, and their use, or no use, of water will have an enormous impact on this drought. They can use the techniques published in a recent Time article called, 5 Ways to Bust California’s Drought, to reduce their water use. Landscape techniques, alternate water sources, and the personal conservation of water can reduce the use of water, and can have a positive change on this water crisis.
Texas, with its abundances of natural resources, is facing a new demon, one that doesn’t even seem possible, a shortage of water. Water, without it nothing can survive. Texas is the second largest state for landmass in the nation and ninth for water square miles. Within the borders of Texas are more than 100 lakes, 14 major rivers, and 23 aquifers, so why has water become such an important issue for the state? Politicians and conservationists all agree that without a new working water plan, the state could be facing one of the most damaging environmental disasters they have ever seen. The issues that shape the states positions are population growth, current drought conditions, and who actually owns the water.
An interesting fact that most people may not know about Yuma is that it has the Guinness World record for being the sunniest city on earth. When looking at the annual weather report, one see that Yuma normally has 305 days of sunshine with 3 inches of rain annually. This may lead some to think that "the Southwest is the hottest and driest region in the U.S., where the availability of water has defined its landscapes, history of human settlement and modern economy" (Davis). It is amazing to think of how water has indeed shaped the way Yuma has succeeded in industries like agriculture. To keep expectations up, farmers have been developing creative irrigations systems for the crops to better adapt to the desert heat.
The Ogallala Aquifer was found in 1889. Since then, 170,000 wells have been made, just in SW Kansas. If we stop pumping right now it will take hundreds of years to refill. If we use it until it is completely dry, it will take 6,000 years to naturally refill. One of the main reasons the aquifer is drying up so fast is center pivot irrigation, which is used by a lot of farmers in SW Kansas. 50% of the water brought up through the wells to water crops is wasted. Water is being pumped out much faster than the Ogallala Aquifer can replenish, therefore dropping the water levels in the aquifer severely.
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While growing up in South Dakota, I frequently visited the Missouri River and various lakes for recreational activities. However, South Dakota’s water is also found under the surface and is used for many more reasons. Agriculture is the industry that uses the largest amount of the state’s water. The water that is used for irrigation typically comes from aquifers.
The Ogallala Aquifer is a shallow water table aquifer, an underground lake beneath the surface. It is located beneath the Great Plains in the United States. The Ogallala Aquifer is one of the largest aquifers and it covers a 175,000 miles squared area (Approximately). Its area spreads underneath eight states: South Dakota, Wyoming, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Nebraska, and Colorado. It was given the name because of its type locality near the small town of Ogallala, Nebraska in 1898. The Ogallala Aquifer is very important to United States agriculture. Approximately 25 percent of the irrigated land in America overlies the aquifer. In addition, 30 percent of the ground water used for irrigation comes from this. The Ogallala Aquifer is crucial to some Americans because the aquifer system is responsible for supplying 80 percent of drinking water to the people who live inside the boundaries of High Plains region. This means that almost two million people are dependent on the Ogallala Aquifer for living.
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