NBC - Core Of W. KS Agriculture Peers Into Abyss; Study Projects 70% Of Ogallala Water Gone By 2060

[hatrack]

MANHATTAN, Kansas—In America’s Breadbasket, a battle of ideas is underway on the most fundamental topics of all: food, water, and the future of the planet.

Last August, in a still-echoing blockbuster study, Dave Steward, Ph.D., and his colleagues at Kansas State University, informed the $15 billion Kansas agricultural economy that it was on a fast track to oblivion. The reason: The precipitous, calamitous withdrawal rates of the Ogallala Aquifer.

The Ogallala is little known outside this part of the world, but it’s the primary source of irrigation not just for all of western Kansas, but the entire Great Plains. This gigantic, soaked subterranean sponge – fossil water created 10 million years ago – touches eight states, stretching from Texas all the way up to South Dakota, across 111.8 million acres and 175,000 square miles.

The Ogallala supports a highly-sophisticated and amazingly-productive agricultural region critical to the world’s food supply. With the global population increasing, and as other vital aquifers suffer equally dramatic declines, scientists acknowledge that if the farmers here cannot meet ever-growing food demands, billions could starve. Steward’s study predicted that nearly 70 percent of the portion of the Ogallala beneath western Kansas will be gone in 50 years. He’s not the kind of person to shout these results; he speaks slowly and carefully. Yet, he has the evident intensity of one who’s serving a greater purpose. “We need to make sure our grandkids and our great grandkids have the capacity to feed themselves,” he says.

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http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/heartland-water-crisis-why-planet-depends-these-kansas-farmers-n150036

[Turbineguy]

1. Sounds like they need more republicans.

2060? Repubs should be able to put policies in place to bring that down to 2020.

[Journeyman]

2. Marc Reisner told them this in 1986, but they just won't listen . . .

Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water elucidated most of the calamitous water scenarios we're now seeing, everything from the draining of Ogallala to the salinization of much of the West's productive agricultural land, but few wanted to hear it then, and I suspect fewer still will listen today.

"Only when the well is dry," wrote Ben Franklin, "do we appreciate the value of the water."

[freshwest]

3. GOP response: Fine! Frack it all to Kingdom Come!

I've known about this fossil water for many years. People don't listen until it's way too late, I guess.