America's breadbasket aquifer running dry; massive collapse incoming

[DMac]

Not good news.

America's breadbasket aquifer running dry; massive agriculture collapse inevitable (http://www.naturalnews.com/031658_aquifer_depletion_Ogallala.html)

[chad]

having grown up on a farm in iowa and having lived most of my life in farming communities, i would like to point out that almost all water for crops comes from rain, not aquifers.

also, aquifers do resupply themselves, they don't magically "run out" as this article says they do. it's called a re-charge area, an area where precipitation falling on the ground seeps back in to the water table and then drains back in to the aquifer.

i would submit that a retard wrote this article.

[MNeagle]

Wonder how much oil fracking is going on in that/those area(s).

If true, very worrisome to say the least.

[mick silver]

dam d your on a run of doom today

[ximmy]

Here is your new water bill... "why is it so much higher"... Drought...

between the lines:
we need you to pay for our current and ongoing climate change propaganda

[Cobalt]

having grown up on a farm in iowa and having lived most of my life in farming communities, i would like to point out that almost all water for crops comes from rain, not aquifers.

also, aquifers do resupply themselves, they don't magically "run out" as this article says they do. it's called a re-charge area, an area where precipitation falling on the ground seeps back in to the water table and then drains back in to the aquifer.

i would submit that a retard wrote this article.


The aquifer they are talking about is the largest in the states and has been a known problem for over 50 years.

The re-charge you are talking about doesn't happen overnight and is a really slow process, google it and you will find it has been estimated that it could take 6000 years to replenish it

[chad]

having grown up on a farm in iowa and having lived most of my life in farming communities, i would like to point out that almost all water for crops comes from rain, not aquifers.

also, aquifers do resupply themselves, they don't magically "run out" as this article says they do. it's called a re-charge area, an area where precipitation falling on the ground seeps back in to the water table and then drains back in to the aquifer.

i would submit that a retard wrote this article.


The aquifer they are talking about is the largest in the states and has been a known problem for over 50 years.

The re-charge you are talking about doesn't happen overnight and is a really slow process, google it and you will find it has been estimated that it could take 6000 years to replenish it


i understand that, but the article is implying that the aquifer running dry is akin to peak oil. it is a well known fact that aquifers renew themselves, so i don't appreciate the author's tone of fear mongering. plus, 6,000 years (i did google it) is merely an estimate based on precipitation models of only 150 years of records. bottom line, this article is shitty science fear mongering.

it'll suck for people that live there (and all of us) if it does dry up, but it's not "gone forever this is a fact" like the author implies.

[keehah]

The article was talking about wells running dry.

http://www.waterencyclopedia.com/Oc-Po/Ogallala-Aquifer.html

...the average saturated thickness is about 60 meters (200 feet)...

The Ogallala is an unconfined aquifer, and virtually all recharge comes from rainwater and snowmelt. As the High Plains has a semiarid climate, recharge is minimal. Recharge varies by amount of precipitation, soil type, and vegetational cover and averages less than 25 millimeters (1 inch) annually for the region as a whole. In a few areas, recharge from surface water diversions has occurred. Groundwater does flow through the High Plains Aquifer, but at an average rate of only 300 millimeters (12 inches) per day.

...The Ogallala Aquifer is being both depleted and polluted. Irrigation withdraws much groundwater, yet little of it is replaced by recharge. Since large-scale irrigation began in the 1940s, water levels have declined more than 30 meters (100 feet) in parts of Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas. In the 1980s and 1990s, the rate of groundwater mining , or overdraft, lessened, but still averaged approximately 82 centimeters (2.7 feet) per year.

[vacuum]

having grown up on a farm in iowa and having lived most of my life in farming communities, i would like to point out that almost all water for crops comes from rain, not aquifers.

also, aquifers do resupply themselves, they don't magically "run out" as this article says they do. it's called a re-charge area, an area where precipitation falling on the ground seeps back in to the water table and then drains back in to the aquifer.

i would submit that a retard wrote this article.


The aquifer they are talking about is the largest in the states and has been a known problem for over 50 years.

The re-charge you are talking about doesn't happen overnight and is a really slow process, google it and you will find it has been estimated that it could take 6000 years to replenish it


i understand that, but the article is implying that the aquifer running dry is akin to peak oil. it is a well known fact that aquifers renew themselves, so i don't appreciate the author's tone of fear mongering. plus, 6,000 years (i did google it) is merely an estimate based on precipitation models of only 150 years of records. bottom line, this article is shitty science fear mongering.

it'll suck for people that live there (and all of us) if it does dry up, but it's not "gone forever this is a fact" like the author implies.



A couple things. First, Iowa doesn't use this aquifer:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/44/Ogallala_saturated_thickness_1997-sattk97-v2.svg/410px-Ogallala_saturated_thickness_1997-sattk97-v2.svg.png

Second, this picture from wikipedia makes it look like its pretty important:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e4/Crops_Kansas_AST_20010624.jpg/626px-Crops_Kansas_AST_20010624.jpg

Third, this is exactly the same as peak oil....oil wells replenish themselves too. Its just that the rate at which the liquid can be easily removed (applies to both oil or water wells) becomes less and less.

[Book]

The Ogallala Aquifer is being both depleted and polluted.

Didn't take us long to destroy this planet. Where to next?

:o

[DMac]

Not trying to fear monger with this one, and as always, it could just be more media driven chicanery - however Murphy's Law leads me to believe we are ripe for something like this given how bad other aspects of things are currently.

Is America facing another Dust Bowl? (http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1272/is_2732_134/ai_n27059461/)

US farmers fear the return of the Dust Bowl (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/8359076/US-farmers-fear-the-return-of-the-Dust-Bowl.html)

[joe_momma]

You could look at deep water aquifers as literally mining water - yes they do replenish, but much, much slower than the recharge rate (in some cases). (Consider it like gold accretion around nuggets in a streambed - it can take thousands of years to create a nugget that can be scooped out by a lucky prospector in an afternoon.)

Carbon dating of the water implied pulled out of deep wells in Arizona (at least to the professors up in Calgary) that the water had left the surface ~4,000 years earlier.

Shallow water wells, rivers, and collection ponds are different (though there is some issue with recharging the aquifers by collecting the ground water [out my scope] the my recollection from Soils 201 was that the recharge rate can be odd).

On the central coast of Californiastan they've actually managed to lower the fresh water table low enough that salt water (ocean) is now filtering backwards into the fresh water. One could argue, having 15 million Angeleno's living large in what should be a desert (Ventura south to San Diego) have compounded the problem. (Anyone want to talk about why the Sacramento farmlands are not getting their water allocation? - hint 1 farmer vs. 5,000 urban voters).

Net net, yes, the Midwest and Southwest in particular may well be using (mining) their groundwater far faster than the recharge rate - this could be a long term problem for agriculture that is far from surface water. But is a much more significant problem for the desert Southwest where the recent population growth far outstripped the available water supply (at least if you want 1/2 acre of manicured lawn around your house.).

[cortez]

having grown up on a farm in iowa and having lived most of my life in farming communities, i would like to point out that almost all water for crops comes from rain, not aquifers.

also, aquifers do resupply themselves, they don't magically "run out" as this article says they do. it's called a re-charge area, an area where precipitation falling on the ground seeps back in to the water table and then drains back in to the aquifer.

i would submit that a retard wrote this article.


dont forget all the snow up in these mountains runnin down hill into those watersheds. the last few winters here in wyoming have been above average

[ximmy]

having grown up on a farm in iowa and having lived most of my life in farming communities, i would like to point out that almost all water for crops comes from rain, not aquifers.

also, aquifers do resupply themselves, they don't magically "run out" as this article says they do. it's called a re-charge area, an area where precipitation falling on the ground seeps back in to the water table and then drains back in to the aquifer.

i would submit that a retard wrote this article.


dont forget all the snow up in these mountains runnin down hill into those watersheds. the last few winters here in wyoming have been above average


Your not suppose to mention snow packed mountains influence on the water table...