Liquidity: Privatization and the Rise of Big Water - The Ripple Effect: The Fate of Freshwater in the Twenty-First Century - page 222

green, and one of the nation's poorest regions became one of the richest. Between 1937
and 1971, the number of irrigation wells in West Texas leaped from 1,166 to 66,000,
according to ScientiicAmerican.But the heavy use of the Ogallala has resulted in a
gradual buildup of contaminants, such as nitrates and dissolved solids, in the soil and
the groundwater.
After analyzing samples taken from 370 public and private wells between 1999 and
2004, the USGS reported that unless “substantial changes” were made, the Ogallala
would be jeopardized. Most of the water met federal quality standards, but in about 6
percent of the wells, nitrate—which can occur naturally or be the result of fertilizer run-
off—was higher than the federal standard of 10 parts per million. (And there are new
worries: PCBs dredged by GE from New York's Hudson River, for instance, are shipped
to a landfill in Andrews County in the Texas panhandle: the Sierra Club fears the toxins
could eventually seep into the Ogallala, though GE and the EPA dismiss these con-
cerns.) Dr. Jason Gurdak , the lead author of the USGS study, warns: “Once contamin-
ated, the [Ogallala] aquifer is unlikely to be remediated quickly” because water under-
ground travels slowly, and it takes years for pollutants to degrade.
A US Department of Agriculture project has compiled data and recommended tech-
niques to avert the aquifer's collapse. Using lasers to measure airflow over fields (which
affects evaporation rates), infrared sensors to turn on irrigation systems only when
needed, and computer databases to help farmers efficiently manage crops, the project
has saved some water—perhaps 10 to 15 percent per crop per season. hese are worthy
advances, but in West Texas, where the Ogallala is rapidly petering out, such technolo-
gies could give farmers only another fifty to a hundred years of use, scientists estimate.
As the population of Great Plains states continues to grow, farmers, eager to capital-
ize on the global demand for food, have put short-term opportunity ahead of long-term
conservation. Some have pumped their ground-water dry and been forced to abandon
their land. Meanwhile the federal government has pushed corn-based ethanol produc-
tion. Corn, which is profitable, is also a thirsty crop. Plans to double the number of eth-
anol production plants in the region will require an additional 120 billion gallons of
aquifer water per year, the Environmental Defense Fund has estimated.
The USGS has studied the Ogallala since the early 1900s and found that yearly
groundwater withdrawals quintupled between 1949 and 1974. By 1980, water levels in
the region had dropped an average of nearly ten feet. In some parts of the central and
southern plains, the drop was over a hundred feet. In southern Kansas, where ground-
water dropped one hundred and fifty feet, some people have forsaken thirsty crops, such
as corn, to try “dryland farming”—growing sunflowers, wheat, and other drought-res-
istant plants. “We have optimistic locations” in the aquifer, said David Pope , the former
chief engineer of Kansas. “Other places, we can see the end.”