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Staff / Reuters
A sprinkler is used near Dodge City, Kansas, in this Nov. 26 photo. Residents of the Great Plains over the last year or so have experienced storms reminiscent of the 1930s Dust Bowl. Experts say the new storms have been brought on by a combination of historic drought, a dwindling Ogallala Aquifer underground water supply, climate change and government farm programs.
LIBERAL, Kan. - Real estate agent Mark Faulkner recalls a day in early November when he was putting up a sign near Ulysses, Kansas, in 60-miles-per-hour winds that blew up blinding dust clouds.
"There were places you could not see, it was blowing so hard," Faulkner said.
Residents of the Great Plains over the last year or so have experienced storms reminiscent of the 1930s Dust Bowl. Experts say the new storms have been brought on by a combination of historic drought, a dwindling Ogallala Aquifer underground water supply, climate change and government farm programs.
Nearly 62 percent of the United States was gripped by drought, as of Dec. 25, and "exceptional" drought enveloped parts of Kansas, Colorado, Oklahoma, Texas, and New Mexico, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.
There is no relief in sight for the Great Plains at least through the winter, according to Drought Monitor forecasts, which could portend more dust clouds.
A wave of dust storms during the 1930s crippled agriculture over a vast area of the Great Plains and led to an exodus of people, many to California, dramatized in John Steinbeck's novel "The Grapes of Wrath."
Drought worsens in High Plains; winter outlook grim
While few people believe it could get that bad again, the new storms have some experts worried that similar conditions -- if not the catastrophic environmental disaster of the 1930s -- are returning to parts of Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Kansas and Colorado.
"I hope we don't talk ourselves into complacency with easy assumptions that a Dust Bowl could never happen again," said Craig Cox, agriculture director for the Environmental Working Group, a national conservation group that supports converting more tilled soil to grassland. "Instead, we should do what it takes to make sure it doesn't happen again."
Handout / Reuters
Webcam views show South Loop 289 before and during a dust storm in Lubbock, Texas, in these National Weather Service handout images dated December 19.
Satellite images on Dec. 19 showed a dust storm stretching over an area of 150 miles from extreme southwestern Oklahoma across the Panhandle of Texas around Lubbock to extreme eastern New Mexico, said Jody James, National Weather Service meteorologist in Lubbock. Visibility was reduced to half a mile in places, stoked by high winds, he said. At least one person was killed and more than a dozen injured in car crashes.
"I definitely think these dust storms will become more common until we get more measurable precipitation," James said.
'Dirty 30s'
The Great Plains is a flat, semi-arid, area with few trees, where vast herds of buffalo once thrived on native grasses. Settlers plowed up most of the grassland in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to create the wheat-growing breadbasket of the United States, encouraged by high commodity prices and free "homestead" land from the government.
The era known as the "Dirty 30s" -- chronicled by Ken Burns in a Public Broadcasting Service documentary that aired in November -- as when a 1930s drought gripped the Great Plains and winds carried away exposed soil in massive dust clouds.
Bill Fitzgerald, 87, a farmer near Sublette, Kansas, remembers "Black Sunday" on April 14, 1935, when a clear, sunny day in southwest Kansas turned black as night by mid afternoon because of a massive cloud of dust that swept from Nebraska to the Texas panhandle.
"My older brother and I were in my dad's 1927 or '28 Chevy truck a mile north and a mile west of the house and we saw it rolling in," Fitzgerald said. "It was about 10 p.m. when it cleared enough for us to go home."
Farming practices have vastly improved since the 1930s. Farmers now leave plant remnants on the top of the soil and less soil is exposed, to preserve moisture and prevent erosion.
The governor of Missouri has enacted an emergency measure to drill new wells in areas where water is scarce, providing much-needed relief for the state's farmers and ranchers. NBC's Thanh Truong reports.
Irrigation beginning in the 1940s from the Ogallala aquifer, a huge network of water under the Great Plains, also made land less vulnerable to dust storms.
Drying
But the Ogallala aquifer is drying up after years of drawing out more water than was replenished.
Many farmers have had to drill deeper wells to find water. Others are giving up on irrigation altogether, which means they can no longer grow crops of high-yielding and lucrative corn. They will instead grow wheat, cotton or grain sorghum on dry land, which depends completely on natural precipitation in an area that typically gets 20 inches of rain a year or less.
Near Sublette, Kansas, farmer Gail Wright said he would probably give up irrigating two square miles of his land and would plant wheat and grain sorghum instead of corn because of the diminishing aquifer. Drilling deeper wells would cost $120,000 each, Wright said.
/
Drought conditions plague much of the United States after a summer of scorching temperatures and a lack of rain. The dryness is affecting America's farmland, threatening crops like soybean and corn.
"When we drilled those wells in the 1960s and 70s, we were doing 1,500 or 1,600 gallons per minute," said Wright. "Now, they are down to anywhere from 400 to 600 gallons per minute. We probably pumped out 200 feet of water."
Another farmer in Sublette, 79-year-old Lawrence Withers, whose family farms land his grandfather settled in 1887, is resigned to a future without irrigation.
"We have pumped 170 feet off the aquifer, that's gone. There's just a little tick of water at the bottom," he said.
The Ogallala supplies water to 176,000 square miles of land in parts of eight states from the Texas panhandle to southern South Dakota. That amounts to about 27 percent of all irrigated land in the nation, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
60 percent of lower 48 states now in drought
The volume of water in the aquifer stood at about 2.9 billion acre feet in 2009, a decline of about 9 percent since 1950, according to the Geological Survey. About two-and-a-half times as much water was drawn out in the 14 years ended 2009 as during the prior 15-year period, data shows.
The water may run out in 25 years or less in parts of Texas, Oklahoma and southwest Kansas, although in other areas it has 50 to 200 years left, according to the Geological Survey.
Rationing has been imposed on irrigation in the region but it may be too little too late.
"It's a situation where across the Plains the demand far exceeds the annual recharge," said Mark Rude, executive director of the Southwest Kansas Groundwater Management District.
Record drought
The worst drought in decades has exacerbated the situation. The semi-arid area around Lubbock, which typically gets about 19 inches of rain a year, received less than 6 inches in 2011, the lowest ever recorded. This year was better but still far below normal at 12.5 inches, meteorologist James said.
Climate change is also having an impact on the region, said atmospheric scientist Katharine Hayhoe, co-director of the Climate Science Center at Texas Tech University in Lubbock.
Grain prices soar as drought impact deepens
"It is definitely hotter in the summer and drier in the summer because of climate change," she said.
The average annual temperature in Lubbock has increased by one full degree over the last decade, according to National Weather Service data, and the average amount of rainfall has fallen during summer months by about .50 inch over the decade.
Some say government policies are making things worse.
Federal government subsidized crop insurance pays farmers whether they produce a crop or not, encouraging farmers to plant even in a drought year.
Another subsidized U.S. government program that pays farmers to take sensitive marginal land out of crop production and put it into grassland is gradually shrinking.
A look at the latest market moves from the trading floor, including the trade on corn prices, with Phillip Streible, RJO Futures.
In a possible case of history repeating itself, high commodity prices are encouraging farmers to break up the land and plant crops when the 10-year conservation contracts with the government expire, said environmentalist Cox. This is similar to what happened in the 1920s when vast areas of grassland were plowed up.
The government also has imposed restrictions on how much land can go into conservation reserves to save money at a time of massive U.S. budget deficits, he said.
The amount of land in conservation reserves has declined by more than 2.3 million acres over the last five years in five states of the Great Plains -- Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado and New Mexico, according to U.S. Agriculture Department data.
If most of that land is plowed up for crops it could lead to more dust storms in the future.
"I think you are probably going to see increased erosion if that happens," said Richard Zartman, Chairman of the Plant and Soil Science Department at Texas Tech, adding that it was unlikely to get as bad as the Dust Bowl days.
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PBS had a great series on this subject by the same man who did "The War" I believe. Talked to many old timers about the "dirty thirty's" hard to believe what they endured. Around here we had a "miracle" crop in my opinion, we were so dry here this spring and with the mild winter the trees were not only budding but some had leaves. 29 degrees for a couple hours and not one leaf dropped. Seems impossible but true.
I am bewildered how the Human Species continues to exist, when we demonstrate that we never seem to have learned from our failures over the past 200,000 years.
Instead, we often, ironically, call it "progress."
@stonepipe Did they ever show part2 on PBS? I've been looking but never saw it.
The human species is the "god species." We have the power to destroy the life-support systems of this planet, via capitalism, consumerism, and just plain selfish, dumb greed. Every time someone turns on a leaf blower, jet ski, weed whacker, uses poisons, clearcuts a forest, fracks, mines, etc., our air, water, land, and climate are being ruined. We are the greatest killers the universe has ever seen. It would be nice if our species suddenly became ethical, and tried to change how we live so we don't create more death.
@karl. Christmas is over and it didn't happen. Maybe next year.
MJ- I am not certain.
The PBS two part mini series was called "The Dust Bowl", by Ken Burns. It was exceptionally well done and both parts aired back in November. It may be airing again and you can search the schedule for your local stations at the website below. You can also get it on DVD.
http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/dustbowl/
Today, many years later we are repeating some of the same mistakes. FDR went through a great deal of effort to try determine how to prevent this in the future. Many programs were put into place and farmers were instructed on the proper farming practices to lessen the problems. Like other very useful things FDR put into place, we have dismantled many of them. (Banking regulations come to mind)
Worse yet than just repeating the same mistakes again, we took it to a new level. In the Dust Bowl days, the primary crop was wheat which could do pretty well in the dry climate that in good years sees very little rain. But we weren't satisfied with that but instead drilled large wells and planted water hungry crops too. Now we are also destroying one of the largest fresh water aquifers in the country. This enormous reservoir is not an endless supply that we can exploit continually. It took thousands of years to build up that aquifer and in mere decades we are getting close to exhausting it.
It was about greed then and it is about greed now. Only as our technologies improve, we can destroy the environment much more effectively in far less time and to even greater levels than the past. Now that's progress!
We criticize other cultures who continue to cling to things that happened centuries ago, yet we are so blind as to not learn from the previous generation or two. We have been here before. It is Deja Vu with a vengeance. Only we can't remember it because we didn't learn from the first time.
I think we can pretty easily predict the potential this has on our food supply, but who knows the consequences of using up this aquifer? For all we know, the great plains could turn into a giant sink hole and we end up with a second Grand Canyon! After the Dust Bowl, many left after realizing what they had done. Dreams shattered and lives lost in the process. And somehow we think it's different now. Somehow we think we can ignore the lessons of the past, yet it appears we are destined to just repeat our mistakes.
Sadly, even having history to look back on to show us what the future has in store, we won't stop and try to change things, we will just charge ahead at an accelerated pace. It would be nice to think that we could do something this time to stave off another disaster, but that is just wishful thinking. Sometimes I think we are incapable of learning. We will sit in denial as all the evidence clearly points to what we should know. Unfortunately too, even if we wanted to do something positive, the nature of politics today is even worse than it was in the 30's. We could never agree on some course of action until it is far too late to do anything.
Anyway, watch the Ken Burns film if you can catch it. It is educational. It is well done considering very little video of the day existed, but a lot of great still photography. Also, getting the stories from the few that actually experienced it is very unique and an effective way to convey the story. Maybe the more people that understand what happened then, the better our chances of not repeating history, although I doubt it.
Does anyone think climate change is real? Hello republicans.
Ban weather. Just kidding T. Lived my whole life mostly outdoors from day one. I do not like what I see happening to our Mother Earth the extremes are what bothers me the most. To me we have stronger and more sustained winds and flat line winds than as a boy. Seldom get a nice gentle rain it's storming or nothing, go ahead and laugh and say it's a cycle, always happened but tell that to your grocery store next summer if this drought continues. I hope you like Rommen Noodles.
GM takenada
still left lane camping i see.
Gm Tramp. Not going there today. To tired.
GM Mary.
General Motors and greetings and hallucinations to all.
This terrifies me.
It is ment to.......
Good going NBC ...ya got another one.
It is what it is, what happens, happens. We are all along for the ride no matter what we think. I am not afraid by any means it is just that our Country's economic recovery will still be based on everyone being able to go to the grocery store and having money left over to buy consumer goods that supply jobs for people. All I can say is good luck to all in the new year. Time for a nap.
Bout time NBC...
thought we would have to go a whole weekend without the standard weekend edition of "eek global warming"
GM Scooter
Seems the 21 Dec 2012 was not enough to quench the "end of the world" scenario folks! LMAO! Soon to have a reality check that weather and climate are a cyclic event!
GM Jack
Hoping for a texan and bronco loss today. home field throughout sure would be nice.
@jackfromJax & IA. Scooter Tramp- The DOD wants the conversation on climate change. The US NAVY has a FaceBook profile called Task Force Climate Change Watch Station in the Arctic. GO FRIEND IT! A brilliant scientist hosts the site. It is real, climate change is here and it is ramping up because we knew about it for 30 YEARS at least!-except for the crippled minds (like you two) who spout the dribble designed by the fossil fuel extractors who own the GOP. Why in Gods name do you have the nerve to get into your car designed with great science that follows the laws of physics when you take the curve and then diss the science of weather-you PICK AND CHOOSE what to believe with the mindless misinformation Fox and Exxon, etc, crafted for you. Idiots!! You people have held us all back for 30-plus years of time we could have been taking action....Your children and grandchildren (God help them) will dis-own YOU and you deserve it 100%.
Katherine M
Sorry you disagree with my opinion - I could have sworn that the Vine was designed for comments. Not to follow the lemmings over the cliff.
A sign of maturity and respect is to listen to other viewpoints and not call people silly names or are you a "lib" with the close minded view? Grasp understanding debates, don't just "dis" them because they do not agree with your rhetoric! Ever think that a correct name for you would be "Richard Cranium"?
I apologize for saying you were an idiot. But the DOD is on board. They cannot get political so you should look at the US NAVY TASK FORCE CLIMATE CHANGE-on Facebook! And if you go to the department of defense you will see that they want the conversation going. Dr Lovelock (who worked for NASA for a while) is the scientist who put forth GAIA-he said 6 billion will be dead at the end of this century from climate change and the many extremes it brings about. GAIA is accepted by the great majority of scientists today, but at first it was considered outlandish.Our atmosphere is holding more water-the average ocean wave is clocked at 15% higher since 1965. These are the quiet changes. We have an oil slick in the air-you cannot see it but it is there. Even as this administration is trying to address it and they are, we still have massive polluters like China. Climate Change is going to be one of the greatist national security risks we face as a nation as hordes of people, out of food, out of water, head north. This is in a report projected by the National Intelligence Council at the request of the Chief Scientist of the CIA. I read it. Their names are not revealed but it is on the gov't website furnished by the freedon of info. act. It is hard to find but you can do it. I recommend you try. Forewarned is forearmed. Climate Change is hard to wrap your head around and many prefer to just bury their head in the sand. Sometimes I feel that way myself. But we have LOST 30 years with this hugh problem-and deniers with money and corporations addicted to money is the reason why. Treasonous.You may not believe the science now,but you will.
Katherine M
Thank you for the apology.
Jack
What most people don't understand is that there is already a MASTER PLAN underway to let everything go to hell in a handbasket in an "End Time" way, because the 'elites' in U.S. government have been building miles and miles of underground shelters at a record pace, which they plan to eventually go into and close the many massive doors on, to await out the final end of everything and everyone else here on Earth. They even have WMDs which they can unleash on our world to keep people on the outside from breaking in to these massive underground shelters. This is why those same elites keep stalling for more time without doing anything to help our failing country and failing world, because they don't want to waste precious money and valuable resources which they can use to pay for systems and provisions for those massive underground shelters. Check out former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura (former Navy Seal) on YouTube, everyone, if you doubt what I am telling you all. - Rick Carter (former Green Beret)
(What these elites in government don't understand is that these outside offensive totalitarian ETs which covertly threaten our emerging human world already have a MASTER PLAN of their own,. when it comes to moving in on our extremely valuable celestial real estate and taking it over, and the intent of eventually taking it completely away. Oh, well, it is not like I haven't warned our world countless times over the last 13+ years. Have fun with your program "End Times", everyone! - RC
Allrighty then, a bit too much eggnog, huh?
Check out former Governor Jesse Ventura on YouTube, everyone! - RC
Rick Carter
You site u tube as a reliable and credible news source? Please tell me you jest sir. if not....and i am being serious here Rick ...from one vet to another ....seek help.... Might want to try the V.A. they are there for you and can help.
I think Rick must have had a bit too much LDS ...
Scooter is looking middle of the road now. Underground cities and I'm not invited?
The only people who are really invited are those who are willing to sell out everyone else here on Earth. - RC
Takenada,
its called being an independant, but whats that have to do with Ricks post?
People just do not want to understand that the great plains were grasslands. This area evolved as grass with deep roots that held the soil because this area got little rain. There were periods of rain and periods of drought. The land adapted to the conditions. This is the area where the buffalo roamed. We decides to farm it in the 20's and 30's and when drought hit, catastrophe. When good times returned with the rain, irrigation became the answer and they tapped the Ogallala Aquifer which now has maybe 20 to 30 years of water left at this rate. Understand now why some of the plains states don't want that pipe line crossing the aquifer. Water is our next crisis. Just find and watch the Ken Burns documentary the pictures alone will shock you and the stories ought to scare the heck out of you.
We can finally tame and harness the mighty Mississippi River in order to recharge the Ogallala Aquifer, and also produce the electrical energy equivalent to tens of millions of windmills at the same time. But we also need to deal with global warming in a most serious way at the same time, while also switching to squirt or drip commercial farming. But unfortunately those are just a few of a great many things which is not happening right now, either, as the U.S. Congress stalls for the time to allow our modern day country and world to eventually go completely under. - RC
PS - Also see I-l-l-u-m-i-c-o-r-p, YouTube, everyone!
(High pressure squirt irrigation farming injects it right into the ground, so it doesn't run off. It is a viable alternative to drip irrigation farming.) - RC
Have you seen the Mississippi river lately? They are talking about closing it to barge traffic because the water level is so low.
Got that right i live 8 blocks from the river and can see it from here. Too many people are ignorant of how that low water and barge traffic well effect them no matter where they live.
Zach Jacoby
22 hours ago
if it is not but a reflection of the state of the times i decline to recount the darkened days that surely do approach our memories of yesterday.
nor do i care for the effervescence of the tide or even the gallant glimmer of the sunbeam
the rock of ages is ney plenty a device as what you claim and shall never decline
no....we share the land and the land yields the crop of both the mouth of the crow and the beak of the sparrow
are you ascending your voice to me? or to the witness account of the above?
wait... i want to recite a story underneath
Experts say the new storms have been brought on by a combination of historic drought, a dwindling Ogallala Aquifer underground water supply, climate change and government farm programs.
(((also today))) *please check yesterdays posts for "hitlers statue" and "obamas weight"
Zach Jacoby let ye who be arcate deny thyself as i will make thee free as the wildbeast in spring
recast thy lover afraid and lay not here a stone at the crest of my vineyard but a pillar of branches to the tomb of the vines
hesitate not for the hour hath beckoned yea the moment hath betrayed thee and thy servants keepers
be not a tongue in a pit of sloth and stand not a wretch in the throne of the great army
lift high the veil and direct the passage of the spear into the brim of deceit
for we desire a flow of disturbance to decide who remain in the sleep of the final hour of night
once the opal of the ninth bridge on the crown of the second of three serpents has spilled it's vengence before our highest command the pathway to redemption will be a vacant entrance and a sightless valley to the thorn of the accomplice vision. spite me not by my children for the love of my bride hath decieved my virtue and crippled the trustfund of my elders flock.
21 hours agoSee More
Potential heir to $300 million Clark copper fortune found dead, homeless
openchannel.nbcnews.com
(((spite me not by my children for the love of my bride hath decieved my virtue and crippled the trustfund of my elders flock.)))
In her will, Huguette Clark left no money at all to her family, leaving it instead to her nurse, goddaughter, attorney, accountant, hospital, doctor, favorite museum and various employees, as well as to an art foundation to be set up at her oceanfront estate in Santa Barbara, Calif. None of her relatives had seen Clark in at least 40 years, though some had been in touch with her through holiday cards and occasional phone calls.
What are you on???? You make NO sense.
When we have these huge cycles of flooding on the Missouri and Mississippi why doesn't the government pump water BACK INTO the ground from the wells it removed it from ? That will reduce the flooding and recharge the aquifer. Leave it to mother nature to purify the muddy Mississippi back to clear water.
.......prophet
all of these prophecies were written publicly in my previous posts on nbcnews~ in the gay marriage of maine story
i believe that when a country was once a christian nation and then turns from it's values and beliefs it is an adulteress to it's faith.
So the ENTIRE nation was Christian then? I =KNEW= the slaughter of the native tribes was because the Bible told 'em so. Since America STARTED OUT as stolen land filled with the bodies of innocents MURDERED by (your words) the Christians that violated North America, these Xtians were adulterous of their "faith" right from the beginning...
UnderSerf.... Could you please outline ANY nation that has not displaced indigenous population... all those you can name... you don't want to live there... nuff said.
California best get it's Guard deployed, you all 'member the LAST Dust Bowl when all those filthy, uneducated, dirt-poor Arkies and Oakies flooded Los Angeles? City was never the same after those shiftless, lazy American refugees came and took all the good jobs in Hollywood...
no problem they will only be coming home and they already speak the local language...you know...Mexican.
Massive water pipeline or canal network throughout the continental US. They exist for natural gas. Why not water? The reason I say this is that these droughts aren't nation wide they are regional. So have an area that's dry simply pump water from a area that is not. Water pipelines to replenish the aquifers We have the pipelines for gas why not water.Call me crazy,many have before, but this could work.
Actually technically this particular drought has been pretty much nationwide, not just regional in scope.
not nationwide at all - only in 48 states ..
Or is it 37, or 13.
How many idiots does it take to fill a continent?
Lets see 48 states, 37, hmmmm how much would it take to not be classified as a regional drought, or is a hundred percent the only criteria for classifying nationwide, actually your wrong it has been nationwide throughout the whole year, the drought has affected everything from the Great Plains to the South.
Lets see 48 states fight a war, its not nationwide, because two states don't fight it.
I mean you only have to quickly google the extent of the drought and you would see it has been nationwide, or as close as practically necessary to term it nationwide.
We in America, at least for the baby boomers and beyond, really haven't had it so hard. It has been the Lost Generation of WW1 and the Greatest Generation of WW2, who have really paid the price and struggled through tough times. With the Great Depression, the effects of those two wars, Korean Conflict, the dust bowl days. But the later generations haven't experienced the massive real hardships on the home front that left their devastating marks on earlier generations.
We need to be very careful in how we manage our precious resources, especially on the plains, a critical source for feeding our nation. Rightly called the bread basket of our nation.Even as we are still shipping out vast amounts to other nations, including China.Currently, it is the farmers who are struggling to sustain their livelihood, as the rest of us pay higher costs.But a darker side is hidden from us.
There is only 2.3% of fresh water available on earth for us to use.Known as blue gold.With the vast majority of that locked up as ice at the North and South poles and inaccessible.The remaining, less than 1% (~.0007%) of all water on earth is accessible for direct human use and subject to the natural chain of rain, snow, and evaporation. So therefore sustainable in normal cycles.
Like lakes,rivers, reservoirs and underground sources shallow enough to access through drilling at affordable costs. Pollution and cities demands aside, the major aquifer being used for the plains, in some places will run out in less than 20 years.In others it could go for 200.
Then again, we seem due for a major life altering national level event. Whether from another economical collapse, pandemic like the Spanish Flu, environmental problem like another Great Dust Bowl, an act of terrorism on a large scale or something else.
Other civilizations in history have shown, none goes very long without experiencing turmoil,upheavals, unexpected challenges and unpreventable attacks to its existence every couple of generations. However, we are long past due for ours. To put it another way, we may one day find ourselves saying, as we face our own dust bowl....
"Water, water, everywhere, nor any drop to drink"
- Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner, by Coleridge
"I think you are probably going to see increased erosion if that happens," said Richard Zartman, Chairman of the Plant and Soil Science Department at Texas Tech, adding that it was unlikely to get as bad as the Dust Bowl days.
It's so comforting that this guy can predict the future. I don't agree with him as I believe this time it will be much worse. As the story outlines, the greedy farmers have depleted the aquifer for their own gain. Ted Turner didn't buy all that land in Nebraska to save the buffalo either. He bought it because the land came with the mineral rights to the water under the land. Farmers that will survive this next dust bowl, will be growing different crops as king corn will wither away. We found the great plains as grassland, and it should return to grassland, but greed will keep that from happening.
At least coastal states can go back to desal as a fallback strategy. Without the Ogalla, the breadbasket stops. This could get really interesting. Maybe we'll build aqueducts to convey water from coastal desal to the Midwest?
The other alternative would be to treat water in the Midwest and use gray water to recharge the aquifer. It will buy you some time, but not a whole lot. Aqueducts to carry water from an more abundant source are the only option, but is so expensive that you'd have to wait for every last well to die out before it became viable.
Global warming...
The left wing's "Creationism"
Absurd.
agreed ...the left is absurd.....
Then how did we kick your ass in the election? GOP is dead as fried chicken and you know it. Whining isn't going to help. Stupid avatar for a stupid poster BTW.
Nice schoolyard taunt, but here's the difference.
Virtually all scientists agree that global warming is real.
Virtually all scientists agree that creationists are nuts.
You guys are whistling in the dark, just hoping that you haven't screwed up the Earth beyond repair and condemned your children to lingering death. News flash: You have! I hope you and your children enjoy the future you have created.
Scooting from "independent" to the far right wing.
Such an arrogant and ignorant culture. We believe we can manage and control nature, then when we can't, it's God's will that makes it so. Morons.
Liberal, Kansas being part of the "Big First" Congressional District goes represented by Tea Party do-nothingest Tim Huelskamp so expect NOTHING to be done about it! My God! There has not even been the simplest of farm bills passed by the Republican simpletons in the US House of Representatives!
The more things change; the more they stay the same!
Same old arguments; same old solutions(?), same old rhetoric!
Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome!
That's the same old comment I've read here a thousand times.
I actually lived in central and western Nebraska for several years and am a student of history as well as being a scientist by training and experience. I have also lived in Illinois, Iowa, North Dakota, Wyoming and Utah so I have seen and/or been part of alot of resource management and farm management.
Several things in the article are incorrect. Firstly, the sprinkler is actually a center pivot irrigator. Some of these require much more water and can waste more water than other irrigation practices.
The main thing though is the draw down on the Ogallalla Aquifer and the so called improvements in farming practices. If the reporter had done any on the ground research they would have found that a great many of the farming practices are REVERTING to nearly those of the 1920s and 1930s. Things like fall plowing, not doing crop rotation (plant corn one year, a nitrogen fixing crop like soybeans or alfalfa the next year etc), tearing out shelter belts ( rows of trees along the fence row to prevent soil erosion due to wind) and other poor farming methods are on the rise after 70 years of proper conservation practices.
The main cause for this is the lust for money from the ethanol industry. Everyone wants to plant corn ( corn is notorious for removing nutrients and moisture from soil). They want to make it weasier to plant in the spring so they fall plow instead of using no till planting (this leads to wind and water erosion and even leaving stubble doesn't help much if you fall plow). They tear out the shelter belts because the shade along the fence row may cause a decrease in productivity for 20 feet on the shady side of the trees. They plant corn and other plants that are NOT suited for dry areas and require massive amounts of water. Illinois and Iowa for exmaple get 35-40 inches of precip a year and usually don't require irrigation parts of the plains get 17 inches of precip a year and require extensive irrigation for corn. The ethanol production process requires 4 to 6 gallons of water to produce 1 gallon of ethanol the 3 to 5 gallons of water left after the process is released mainly as vapor/steam.
The removal of the shelter belts has removed even more wildlife habitat/shelter. As a side effect of modern ag equipment, combines in particular, there is less waste grain left on the ground in the fall so in addition to removal of wildlife habitat, animals that adapted to foraging for waste grain are now impacted by those improved practices limiting their access to food.
Thanks for the good and updated information. It seems to be human nature to become complacent when danger has passed. People tend to revert to their own considerations, forgetting that those considerations are what activities caused the initial danger.
I can only hope that others will wake up to history repeating itself before yet another catastrophe overtakes our nation.
DING!... DING!... give that man the prize... Ethanol subsidies should be curtailed ... not only is it a drag on the economy but it is now being propped up by this administration as a "alternative fuel"... Ethanol was on the decline but now it has found a new friend in Obama... We should return to "common sense" farming but it seems that many farms are forced to produce only in the way the government says... Am I Off on this?
The biggest threat to the Ogallalla Aquifer: Overuse.
The second biggest threat: The Keystone Pipeline.
We need the keystone to bring water down from the north.
Do you really think we need to import tar sands oil to Texas?
Must be a Dumerican Delusion.
"Federal government subsidized crop insurance pays farmers whether they produce a crop or not"
Oh... that must be the welfare state recipients the republicans complain so much about. Obviously those farm programs must end... no more socialism, right?
The plains farmers did not learn enough from the '30s dust bowl debacle. Proper land use would mandate the planning of trees to help prevent land erosion. It makes no sense to keep doing the same things over and over expecting different results.
This is a great example of what human beings will do when given unrestrained freedom.
For all the right-wing, gun loving, ignorant asses who vote Republican this is what happens in the absence of regulation. Government doesn't always get it right, but there is no substitute for RULES. Joe Blow will suck the aquifer dry even if it means his neighbors will be ruined. That is human nature operating as an individual. I've got MINE baby! Properly administered RULES ensure sustainability and fairness.
Furthermore, the political Right cares absolutely nothing about addressing climate change due to massive dumping of carbon into the atmosphere (think coal).
How 'bout some PRODUCTIVE ideas from the conservatives for a change.
Right you are, Steven.
The economic principle you describe is usually summarized as, "The marginal gain of an individual from the use of a limited, shared good will always exceed the marginal loss due to the depletion of the total good." And it's a well established fact that has been demonstrated over and over throughout history.
Professor Garrett Hardin ...
http://www.garretthardinsociety.org/
... has written the most widely read essay on this: The Tragedy of the Common.
Steven ... The first issue is stop confusing any current political party with Conservative Politics. Is it entirely true to lump all democratic party members as fantasy chasing Socialists? BOTH parties have strayed to far in extreme to their beginnings. Conservative Politics is what founded the Republic, the basis of the Constitution and the beliefs of the founding fathers that strengthened the most incredible Republic the world has ever known. Do a little research, read "The Federalist Papers" by Hamilton, Madison and Jay. Look into their actions and lives ..... THAT is being Conservative.
Second issue. Freedon is not being able to do what you want with no restrictions. A federal government has the responsibility to provide for the common good. That was never meant to mean multi-generational welfare or government run medical taxation. It is clearly outlined in the afore mentioned document to mean concerns of the Republic: National defense, foreign treaties, comformity of law between states, interstate commerce to mention a few of the primary functions. There is a necessary function for regulations, but the Republic was founded with great care to avoid over-regulation by a federal tyrant. As far as I am concerned infrastructure, power production, conservation to prevent the situation in the midwest falls in the catagory of legitimate federal functions of protecting the common good.
Third issue. How about some constructive ideas from the left for a change? There is a climate change occuring. Humanity is contributing to the natural cycle. What does the left do other than scream the sky is falling? There is currently NO viable substitute for cheap portable energy in the form of fossil fuels. Wind can not replace it, solar can not replace it, any other "green thing" you name can not replace it ... as yet. With 6 billion plus on an over-populated world what happens when you can not supply food, energy, pump water ... all reliant on cheap portable energy to provide for their survival.
You want easy answers? Population control would be the only viable long term solution, it is not the source that is the problem so much as the number of individuals using that source. That doesnt mean mass killings or any other rediculous buzzword of the left. It means a humane and systematic reduction of births to below replacement level. Try getting the world to agree to a sensible plan of trying to enforce world wide reduction of population levels to below replacement levels. The rgions most in need of that are the ones least likely to participate ... S. America, Africa (including the mid-east), Asia.
Not any more. It's a bit late even for really hard ones. There was a time when I would have welcomed any answer, no matter how hard. For example ...
There was a time when the "left wing" of that day screamed and hollered about it. Yep! A bit late for that now too. But like AGW itself, "conservatives" (that is ... RWNJ's) decided they didn't need to listen.
At least dust futures will be looking up
A dust bunny in every pot, and two in the garage?