Ogalla Depletion - A Case Study of Mismanagement of Agricultural Water

It took millenia to create and about a century to deplete. The Ogallala Water Coordinated Project has a graphic which is a timeline of depletion.

The profligate depletion cannot be called Agricultural Water Management. Right of capture and planned depletion ( admittedly " no longer in the best interests..." ) have proven to be short sighted.

The vast expanses of crops are artificial. There is no fallback plan when the Ogallalla runs dry. The Ogallala spans eight states, 174,000 miles and supports about 1/3 of U S irrigated acreage. Programs such as the Ogallala Aquifer Program may be too little too late.

It is interesting to note the contrast in management between states. Texas is practically dry with some areas of the Llano Estacado pivoting to viticulture. Kansas has drought emergencies. Nebraska still has about 1,000 feet of water - by discipline, not accident.

The Ogallala Aquifer has enabled water-intensive crops like cotton, corn, and alfalfa to thrive. This has come at a high cost. In some parts of the aquifer, water levels have dropped by more than 100 feet since large-scale irrigation began back in the 1940's. Extraction rate of 12 inches per year and recharge rate of less than one inch per year in many areas—meaning the aquifer is essentially a finite resource. The Ogalalla is what is called a " confined aquifer " which means it was sealed off in the late Pleistocene. By definition, it cannot be recharged. " Fossil water" is a misnomer for two reasons: the water was only recently captured from the deterioration of the Rockies (only 12 million years ago ) and a fossil is something replaced by other minerals.

.With wells running dry and pumping costs rising, the era of abundant water is ending. In some areas, specifically Muleshoe and Lubbock, wells have gone dry. West Texas is at a crossroads. If the water issue is not resolved soon, the cotton fields will revert to cattle grazing.

Electricity to run pumps longer and deeper adds to the input costs. On average, irrigating an acre of corn may require 20 to 25 inches of water per year - over 500,000 gallons per acre. With pumping costs between $50 and $150 per acre-foot depending on depth and energy prices, the water bill for irrigating a single acre of corn can exceed $300 annually.

Cotton, another staple crop of West Texas, is slightly less water-intensive than corn but still demands substantial irrigation. And for alfalfa, a water-hungry forage crop, the economics make even less sense when water is scarce.

fields of Texas Upland Cotton

The long term prognosis worst case is more water fights and higher food prices. It's simple economics of scarcity resources.