The Ogallala Aquifer

The Ogallala Aquifer is the biggest freshwater aquifer in the world. It is located under Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Colorado, and Texas. Most of the freshwater for these states comes from the Ogallala Aquifer, especially Kansas. Many people have been worried that the Ogallala Aquifer will not any water left soon. This has lead to many debates if we should start spending money to “save” the Ogallala Aquifer or if we don’t need to yet.

The USDA has spent $10 million in order to study the Ogallala Aquifer. According to “Agri-View” up to 30% of the water used in the U.S to irrigate crops or to give animals water comes from the Ogallala Aquifer. 90% of the water pumped from the Ogallala Aquifer is used in order to irrigate crops and give water to animals. This means that if the Aquifer ran out of water, it could be quite devastating, especially for the mid-west.

Some effects have already been seen of the Ogallala running out of water according to “Scientific American”. In the 1950’s when Ogallala was found, everyone thought the water was inexhaustible but soon after thousands of farmers in the 1960’s have used tons of water. It became clear that the water could be used up. After having to drill wells up to 150 feet compared to before’s 60 feet, many farmers had to abandon their wells altogether.

Many people have been trying to move away from using ground water after finding out in the 1960’s that the water could be drained. Now researchers are trying to develop less thirsty crops. Also not plowing your fields after harvest can help. If you have 600 acres of crops and you don’t plow your crops, you could potentially make an extra inch of rainfall water per year.

I think that we should try to move away from ground water too. Though, not so suddenly. If we move away from the Ogallala Aquifer so suddenly it could cause crops everywhere to die. If the Ogallala ran out of water then it would take 6000 years in order for it to refill naturally. We really shouldn’t take the risk of emptying it, because if we run out of water on the surface (for some reason) then we will always have a backup reservoir of water if we don’t drain it.