Even
before I turned 10 it was obvious I had an insatiable appetite for
history. I loved to sit with old folks and hear them tell me about
the days gone by and by 13 I could have been certified as a Civil War
expert. I had checked out The Sinking of the Bismark so many times
from the school library, no one else had a chance to read it while I
was in 5th grade and part of 6th as well.
Except for the lack of love scenes, it behooves any screenwriters out
there to give it a look – what a plot! But that has nothing to do
with today's topic.
I
had a good grasp of Kansas history as well. I knew about the
pro-slavery Kansas constitution and the anti-slavery constitution –
the latter is the one that won out after some bloody confrontations
giving rise to the name “Bleeding Kansas.” I actually lived in
both capital cities – Topeka, the anti-slavery capital we all know
and Lecompton, KS about 18 miles east of Topeka, the pro-slavery
capital that is mostly ignored.
Finally
in high school I came across material on The Dust Bowl, and it simply
floored me that no one I had talked to had ever said a word about it.
I lived in Northeast Kansas, which was about 150 miles east of the
Dust Bowl's eastern line, but such a phenomena would surely have
affected beyond the borders drawn on a map. Yet, none of my mentors
had even mentioned it.
On a recent day off, I immersed myself in Ken Burns' film, “The Dust
Bowl” and watched the whole four hours (or so) in one sitting. It
was my second time to watch it, doing it all at once was a bit
overwhelming even with the knowledge I had going in. If your
anti-depressant Rx is up to date, it's an eye-opener for sure, but
without meds, it is one helluva story to follow. It was one of the
“top five natural disasters” in the world and it was entirely
man-made. Let that sink in. Mind you, as it happened, the humanity
involved had no idea that they were at fault, but none-the-less,
absent the mass of humans with their tractors and their plows, and
there is no The Dust Bowl. A rather long drought, did nothing to
help it, but it would not have caused the blowing dust that killed
animals, domestic and wild, and humans alike. There had to be humans
and their tractors pulling plows.
There
was one mention at the very last of the film that I want to explore
today, something I had heard of several times, in the back ground of
other conversations, but here, in the film, a man was saying we have
40 years left and I began to calculate from the film's 2012 release
about when he gave those numbers – six years ago, plus however long
in production.
The
forty years left was in reference to the Ogallala Aquifer.
The
Ogallala Aquifer is a massive body of water that lies underground
from South Dakota and Wyoming, through Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado,
Oklahoma and New Mexico, ending in Texas. While it's been known about
for some time, becoming a part of the White Cultures' science just
over 100 years ago, the Ogallala was left pretty much alone. In the years around WWII, farmers began to use the Ogallala to grow crops
that needed more water than they had and once farmers had a vision of
all they could grow using the aquifer's water, the dam burst, so to
speak, giving rise to the gloomy prediction of forty years left. The
Ogallala provides 30% of the water used for irrigation nation wide,
and also supplies many mid-Western municipalities with their drinking
water supply.
![]() |
The Ogallala Underground Aquifer from Wyoming to Texas touching eight states. |
Once
depleted, the Ogallala will take 6,000 years to replenish. This is a
finite resource. No politician seems to have the heart to say, “Uh,
folks? We have a problem here,” and it's a big problem. The
Ogallala is being drained in years with good rain, because farmers
can grow crops that would not be attempted without that water. It is
used heavily in rain short years to keep the traditional grain crops
producing. It is used too heavily and this consumption needs to be
addressed to prevent this resource from disappearing.
Without
the water, a whole new chain of so-called “Okies” will hit the
road for – literally – greener pastures, only California won't be
one of them. Our water shortages are as bad as the Great Plains, if
not worse. California agriculture ships alfalfa, a heavy drinker of a
plant if there ever was one, rice and other plants to foreign markets
which is absurd because in the real world we are shipping our water
overseas – water we can ill afford to give up to make a farmer –
or more likely, a company that grows the alfalfa and so on, rich. Our
precious water is sent across the world when shortages are already
here – if one should have any doubts, a quick internet search on
the water levels at Lake Mead should quickly clear that up.
Of
all the concerns we have about Global Climate Change, the one I never
hear is lack of water – and yet that figures in the equation –
especially when we also waste huge quantities of water in fracking.
The chemical soup that is used in fracking – too toxic to reveal
just what compounds are in that mix – ruins water and that water will never be used for drinking ever again. Here is the hard truth about fracking: That water is never coming back. There is no way to clean fracking water –it is catastrophe that will serve no good to anyone for
the rest of the life of the planet, unless a miracle occurs. We - as a species - count on water recycling through the system - this does not happen with water used in fracking - mind
you, there are other examples where we have removed water from
Earth's hydrological cycle that we won't get back.
We
all need to be on the front lines pushing our governments to do more
with less – to control this abuse of water and to make sure there
is ample water for future generations. We can start by using less
ourselves – I subscribe to the belief that we must treat water like
the sacred, limited, precious life force that it is and so I take
fast showers, less frequently; I put cold water in a bucket while I
wait for my water to heat up and use it around the house (no, I don't
want an instant hot water unit – that hot water tank figures in my
survival plans as a source of water in an emergency!). But let's all be
cognizant that all our water is a limited resource – whether you
are growing crops that need more water than your locality can afford,
or shipping the plants you irrigated across the ocean, noting that
those plants used the water that had to be pulled from the Colorado
River (which already doesn't have enough) thereby degrading the
amount of water we have for wildlife and humans alike. We need to
make these points to our Congresspeople and to the world at large.
“Just
water” is only “just” until there is no more. It is precious
and a vital part of life. Let's value it and work to show everyone
the priorities we need to embrace.
david
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