The Great Plains' invisible water crisis

The prairie wind buffeted Brant Peterson as he stood in a half-dead field of winter wheat. In front of him, a red-winged blackbird darted in and out of a rippling green sea of healthy wheat. Behind him, yellowed stalks rotted in the ground. The reason for the stark contrast was buried 600 feet under Peterson’s dusty boots: Only part of the field — the thriving part — had been irrigated by water pumped at that depth from the ancient Ogallala Aquifer, one of the largest underground sources of fresh water in the world. “If not for irrigation that whole field would look like this,” Peterson said, nudging the dead wheat with the toe of his boot. But irrigation soon could end on Peterson’s southwest Kansas farm. The wells under his land in Stanton County are fast running dry as farmers and ranchers across the Great Plains pump the Ogallala faster than it can be replenished naturally. Three of his wells are already dry. Within five years, Peterson estimates, he likely won’t be able to irrigate at all. The depletion of groundwater stores also is a problem familiar to farmers struggling with drought in California, where pumping for irrigation has put the state’s Central Valley Aquifer under the most strain of any aquifer in the U.S., according to NASA satellite data. But California also has surface water: reservoirs, lakes, streams, rivers, snow melt from the Sierra Nevada and a water transportation system. Western Kansas’ only significant water source is the Ogallala. Unlike in California, where national headlines, severe water-use restrictions and images of cracked earth bear testament to the ravages of drought, the crisis unfolding on Peterson’s farm and others like it across western Kansas is mostly invisible. It’s taking place underground, in a sparsely populated rural area — out of sight, out of mind for most Americans...more