The End of an Aquifer

<v Jerry Wilhelm>[water dripping] ?inaudible? <v Narrator>Jerry Wilhelm is selling the family farm. <v Narrator>Over a section of land. <v Narrator>748 acres on the auction block, everything must go. <v Narrator>[Jerry inaudibly speaking] Tractors, ?inaudible? sheds, fence posts, and ultimately the <v Narrator>house near Nazareth, Texas, where the Wilhelm's have raised their ten children. <v Narrator>It's an all too common sight nowadays on the high plains. <v Narrator>It's the heartland of America, the land they used to call the Great Prairie. <v Narrator>For Jerry Wilhelm and his family, the old ?home? place has become more of a liability <v Narrator>than an asset. <v Narrator>For hundreds of other farmers like Jerry Wilhelm, the auctioneers melodic refrain <v Narrator>?inaudible? has become a cliche for the ending of a way of life. <v Jerry Wilhelm>195, 295, 295. ?inaudible? 290.

<v Jerry Wilhelm>Number 3 1 8 the buyer 3 1 8 290. <v Jerry Wilhelm>[dripping water] <v Narrator>Farmers are hard pressed practically everywhere in this country. <v Narrator>The escalating cost of fuel, fertilizer, feed and equipment have taken <v Narrator>their toll. The economics of the marketplace have put the squeeze on the family <v Narrator>farm. It was President John Kennedy, who said the farmer is <v Narrator>the only person in the country who must buy retail and sell wholesale. <v Narrator>John Kennedy was right. <v Narrator>Farmers on the high plains are not only selling their corn, cotton and wheat wholesale, <v Narrator>they're also selling their farms wholesale. <v Narrator>[Jerry inaudibly speaking] And one of the biggest reasons for all of the auctions is <v Narrator>selling all of the old home places, is that many farmers on the high plains <v Narrator>are also miners who'd been working the same plane. <v Narrator>For 40 years they've been mining liquid gold and the vein is just <v Narrator>about exhausted. The Ogallala's bone dry.

<v Narrator>[music plays] <v Wes Jackson>Uh the Indians hunted the flint and made their fulsome

<v Wes Jackson>points. Uh after the Indian uh there were the the <v Wes Jackson>uh well the miners of the buffalo hide. <v Wes Jackson>The white hunters of the hide. <v Wes Jackson>And uh we know what happened there. <v Wes Jackson>And then the bones were mined from the prairie. <v Wes Jackson>And then uh there were the grass miners. <v Wes Jackson>And then uh came the those that turned the sod <v Wes Jackson>that began to mine the soil. <v Wes Jackson>And of course, we know the story, the mining of the water, the mining of the oil, <v Wes Jackson>the mining of the natural gas. <v Wes Jackson>We have a men- the mining mentality is all pervasive. <v Wes Jackson>We've always been into mining. <v Wes Jackson>Uh we have the idea the Lord will provide. <v Wes Jackson>Well, the Lord, of course, may provide, but uh at the expense <v Wes Jackson>of uh of the future. [dripping water] <v Stewart Udall>Hello, I'm Stewart Udall, and I wanna talk to you about the future.

<v Stewart Udall>This program is about the future, the bleak future of the Ogallala Aquifer, <v Stewart Udall>the world's largest water aquifer, a vast underground storage reservoir <v Stewart Udall>that for the past 40 years has helped to make the Great Plains one of the world's <v Stewart Udall>most productive agricultural areas. <v Stewart Udall>But the Ogallala is being pumped dry, drained by huge irrigation pumps <v Stewart Udall>that can pump up to 2000 gallons per minute, pumped dry to produce <v Stewart Udall>stands of cotton and wheat and corn as high as an elephant's <v Stewart Udall>?eye?. The Ogallala is a water resource that underlies 8 states <v Stewart Udall>and provides for the irrigation of over 16 million acres. <v Stewart Udall>It is a living renewable system. <v Stewart Udall>Nature has been slowly storing water in the Ogallala for more than 12 million years. <v Stewart Udall>But for the past 40 years, its water has been withdrawn faster than it has <v Stewart Udall>accumulated. How did it happen? <v Stewart Udall>What can be done about it?

<v Stewart Udall>Have we again needlessly sacrificed an irreplaceable natural resource? <v Stewart Udall>Greg Smith, a geologist with the U.S. <v Stewart Udall>Geological Survey, explains how it started a long time <v Stewart Udall>ago. <v Greg Smith>Some 2 to 12 million years ago, the mountain ranges of the Rocky Mountain area were being <v Greg Smith>uplifted and arched to gain their present elevation. <v Greg Smith>As a result of this gain in altitude, the streams in the area were able to vigorously <v Greg Smith>erode into the mountain bedrock and thousands of feet of rock were eroded from the tops <v Greg Smith>of these mountains. <v Greg Smith>Numerous streams carried the resulting material sand, silt and gravel and clay <v Greg Smith>and spread them to the east over the Great Plains, over a preexisting landscape <v Greg Smith>of hills and valleys, so the thickness of the Ogallala formation varies considerably. <v Greg Smith>The water saturated thickness of the Ogallala Ranges up to 700 feet. <v Greg Smith>Let's take a look at what the Ogallala is composed of, sand and gravel. <v Greg Smith>The Ogallala Formation consists of a series of generally unconsolidated sands and gravels <v Greg Smith>and silts and clays. However, most of the Ogallala consists of sand and silt size

<v Greg Smith>material, which is very porous and allows the storage of water. <v Greg Smith>Many people think of groundwater as occurring in large underground rivers or lakes. <v Greg Smith>However, this is generally not true. <v Greg Smith>The groundwater in the Ogallala formation occurs in the spaces or pores <v Greg Smith>between the sand and silt grains. <v Greg Smith>The recharge to the Ogallala formation occurs by precipitation, rain and snow <v Greg Smith>falling on the surface and seeping into the formation itself. <v Greg Smith>The Ogallala is going dry mainly because the recharge is not keeping up with the pump <v Greg Smith>?inaudible? discharge from the formation. <v Greg Smith>So what we have is essentially mining of groundwater. <v Narrator>?Man? has been farming on this planet for just a fraction of the time it took the <v Narrator>Ogallala to form. <v Narrator>About 6000 years ago, the Egyptians developed irrigation techniques. <v Narrator>They discovered a fundamental principle in the history of man's development. <v Narrator>?inaudible? could be dependent upon for a constant source of water for growing crops. <v Narrator>If you didn't have a nearby river or stream, you basically had one other option

<v Narrator>if you wanted to be a farmer. You had to depend on rain. <v Narrator>And rain, as most weathermen will testify, is not always very dependable. <v Narrator>For about 6000 years, farmers have used one or the other of these two systems <v Narrator>to grow their crops. River or stream, irrigation or dry land <v Narrator>farming and prayer. Praying for rain. <v Narrator>Not too much rain and not too little. <v Narrator>[music plays] <v Wes Jackson>Somebody got a little deeper when they were drilling a well

<v Wes Jackson>and they they discovered what they thought was an underground river <v Wes Jackson>and they perceived it to be an inexhaustible supply. <v Wes Jackson>Just like some of their ancestors perceived the force of North America to be <v Wes Jackson>inexhaustible, we went after that water because <v Wes Jackson>we are the descendants of settlers that came from a humid section <v Wes Jackson>of the country. And when you go into western Kansas, western Nebraska, <v Wes Jackson>where we have the buffalo grass, uh it doesn't <v Wes Jackson>look like uh Illinois or Kentucky <v Wes Jackson>or Vermont. <v Wes Jackson>Uh and if you got water so that you can change that landscape. <v Wes Jackson>Uh have an ensemble of plants growing there that is reminiscent <v Wes Jackson>of where we were, well, then we do it. <v Narrator>The Great Depression and the Dust Bowl had finally come to an end.

<v Narrator>And a technological revolution that burgeoned during and after World War Two <v Narrator>brought with it a new option for the dry land farmer living over the Ogallala. <v Narrator>Irrigation and pump technology, coupled with a seemingly inexhaustible <v Narrator>aquifer provided high plains farmers with something they had never before enjoyed: <v Narrator>predictability. The knowledge that they had at last a ?measure? <v Narrator>of control over Mother Nature. <v Narrator>The water, the source of ?inaudible? <v Narrator>was just sittin' down there lying under Kansas, Nebraska, <v Narrator>Oklahoma, New Mexico, Colorado and Texas. <v Narrator>[music plays] And all you had to do to get it was to turn on the pump. <v Duncan Ellison>This area is responsible for about 25 percent of the nation's cotton

<v Duncan Ellison>production every year. 20, 25 percent of the grain ?sorghum? <v Duncan Ellison>production fed cattle beef cattle enough to feed 20 million <v Duncan Ellison>Americans per year. <v Duncan Ellison>Uh 40 years from now, we'll be outta water here. <v Duncan Ellison>But it will be a gradual sort of a thing. <v Duncan Ellison>Now, I think the biggest asset we have out here is really not water, it's <v Duncan Ellison>the ingenuity of the people that used the water. <v Duncan Ellison>And this ingenuity comes in like more and more every day. <v Duncan Ellison>As we have less water to use, we find more genius ways to use it. <v Jack Muse>I would guess that I can sustain irrigated farming on this piece of ground for about <v Jack Muse>another 5 years. <v Jack Muse>That will depend on how how much the neighbors <v Jack Muse>pump, how much I pump, how aggressive we are with mining the water that we do have. <v Wes Jackson>Uh well, first of all, it's played out almost in Texas and it's moving <v Wes Jackson>across the panhandle handle and now play uh playing out in Kansas. <v Wes Jackson>And 62 percent of all the Ogallala water that is left, I understand, is in

<v Wes Jackson>Nebraska. Uh and so it's part of the good old American <v Wes Jackson>tradition that when it plays out in one place, why just move on. <v Wes Jackson>I mean, that's one of the things that's happened. <v Wes Jackson>Move right from from Jamestown to the West Coast <v Wes Jackson>is uh when the soil is gone or when the place has been made foul. <v Wes Jackson>I just move on. Or if a society regards land like they do <v Wes Jackson>that, hay bailer there, that'll depreciate out in a certain period of time, <v Wes Jackson>uh then they know when they're their capital investment is going to <v Wes Jackson>have played out and they'll just simply go on to another one. <v Wes Jackson>Well, that of course is an economics that's built on infinite systems. <v Wes Jackson>And uh when we're talking about agricultural land, we're not talking about infinity. <v Jerry Wilhelm>[quickly auctioning]

<v Duncan Ellison>I think that it will be the High Plains Council that will make any recommendation <v Duncan Ellison>uh relating to ?importation?. <v Duncan Ellison>I think that the report will show that without ?importation?, it will adversely <v Duncan Ellison>affect in a very major way our balance of payments, the nation <v Duncan Ellison>balance payments and foreign trade. <v Duncan Ellison>And I think that it will also show that without ?importation? <v Duncan Ellison>that we will have more hungry, starving people around <v Duncan Ellison>the world, perhaps even in this country in the not too distant future. <v Frances M. Lappe>The idea that our agriculture is feeding the hungry world is a fun- <v Frances M. Lappe>is a is a myth [laughs]. <v Frances M. Lappe>Two thirds of our agricultural exports go to feed livestock. <v Frances M. Lappe>And anyone who's ever been to the third world or knows anything about third world <v Frances M. Lappe>reality knows that hungry people are not eating meat and they're certainly not eating <v Frances M. Lappe>meat fed on imported grain. <v Frances M. Lappe>Our tax dollars pay for bakery schools in Asia, teaching people <v Frances M. Lappe>to enjoy wheat and associate that with a good life when historically for thousands <v Frances M. Lappe>of years they've done quite well eating rice.

<v Frances M. Lappe>So I think that there that farmers often feel that well, <v Frances M. Lappe>even if I'm not making a killing, at least I'm feeding the hungry world. <v Frances M. Lappe>And so that 'gain, perpetuates this idea that, well, if we can just export <v Frances M. Lappe>more food, that somehow farmers are gonna make more money and the world's gonna <v Frances M. Lappe>be better off. <v Y.F. Snodgrass>Until we get back in, we get to the point to weaken how the importation <v Y.F. Snodgrass>of water, fresh water from somewhere that we will have many acres that <v Y.F. Snodgrass>we'll revert back to dryland farming. <v Y.F. Snodgrass>But then when that big ditch or canal or however it's brought in here is brought in <v Y.F. Snodgrass>here, this will be one viable part of the economy of the United <v Y.F. Snodgrass>States, providing a food and a fiber supply domestically for our people <v Y.F. Snodgrass>and also helping to provide that market that's so available all over the world <v Y.F. Snodgrass>in the export channels. <v Gorman Byrd>We've got grains. We have a hard time, sir. <v Gorman Byrd>You see, even though our export market will amount to <v Gorman Byrd>around 42 to 45 billion dollars in agricultural goods

<v Gorman Byrd>just this year, uh we- we've still got grains we can't sell. <v Gorman Byrd>We're producing too much of it even yet. <v Gorman Byrd>So consequently, I don't think the government, the federal government would be bothered <v Gorman Byrd>about piping water in here until we actually need the irrigated <v Gorman Byrd>production from this area. <v Narrator>?inaudible? The high plains need more water because it's helping to feed a hungry world. <v Narrator>Should we continue to encourage farmers to raise surplus crops? <v Narrator>Do we as a nation have a long range foreign policy? <v Narrator>Do we have a meaningful national water policy? <v Narrator>All these questions need to be addressed, but unfortunately the answers will not be <v Narrator>found in time to save the Ogallala. <v Narrator>Although the Ogallala will last another 40 or 70 years depends upon <v Narrator>which expert you talk to. In the minds of many farmers and the governors of the 6 states <v Narrator>that depend on Ogallala water, time is running out and some envision <v Narrator>the ultimate solution as a concrete ditch over 100 feet wide and up

<v Narrator>to 900 miles long. <v Stewart Udall>Vast systems of canals are expected to be part <v Stewart Udall>of a report that the High Plains Study Council is preparing for Congress is one <v Stewart Udall>answer to the Ogallala crisis. <v Stewart Udall>Many authorities calculate that the plan, which is being developed <v Stewart Udall>by the council and the Army Corps of Engineers, will contemplate <v Stewart Udall>a project which could be the largest and the most costly in the history of the world. <v Stewart Udall>Building the Panama Canal was, of course, a tremendous feat, <v Stewart Udall>bringing Prudhoe Bay oil from the Arctic, a tremendous recent undertaking, <v Stewart Udall>but bringing the Missouri River to Colorado, that would be something else. <v Duncan Ellison>Those who have surplus water are, of course uh, the first <v Duncan Ellison>uh reaction is you can't have my water. <v Duncan Ellison>But bear in mind that out here we're not lookin' for someone else's water <v Duncan Ellison>we're looking for water.

<v Duncan Ellison>It is absolutely surplus to all of their projected future need. <v Duncan Ellison>And we have no intention of taking a drop of water from anywhere <v Duncan Ellison>where it's needed to bring water out here. <v Duncan Ellison>We're talking about water that is going to waste right now flowing into the <v Duncan Ellison>ocean unused every year. <v Duncan Ellison>And we'll continue to do so throughout history. <v Duncan Ellison>That's the water we're talking about. <v Wes Jackson>Well, then they better start talking to the barge men on the <v Wes Jackson>Missouri. And I mean, barge men at St. <v Wes Jackson>Lewis, barge men in Kansas City, barge men all along, <v Wes Jackson>as well as barge men on the Mississippi before they start talking about surplus <v Wes Jackson>water. They better uh talk to some of the industrial leaders <v Wes Jackson>in those towns, too, before they start talking about surplus water. <v Wes Jackson>Uh one of the things that characterizes the Missouri River basin as <v Wes Jackson>a whole, I mean, if you take the full length of it,

<v Wes Jackson>uh is that it is a basin that does not have surplus water. <v Stewart Udall>Regardless of whether the ?inaudible? <v Stewart Udall>has a surplus or not, the Army Corps of Engineers has spent a lot of time and <v Stewart Udall>money investigating various schemes to import water to the high plains. <v Stewart Udall>And they've come up with four possible plans. <v Stewart Udall>[water rushing] Plan A involves tapping the Missouri River at Fort Randall, South Dakota, <v Stewart Udall>and transporting it south westward through Nebraska to Bonny Reservoir, Colorado. <v Stewart Udall>Plan B would likewise use the Missouri bringing water from St. Joseph, <v Stewart Udall>south westward through Kansas City to Dodge City. <v Stewart Udall>Plan C would originate in Arkansas, collecting <v Stewart Udall>water from six different rivers in Arkansas and Texas before the canal reached its <v Stewart Udall>storage point in the Texas Panhandle. <v Stewart Udall>Plan B also involves the use of rivers in Arkansas and Texas, <v Stewart Udall>eventually terminating in West Texas.

<v Stewart Udall>The shortest drought is Plan B, a distance of 360 miles. <v Stewart Udall>Plan C would stretch 870 miles across Arkansas <v Stewart Udall>and Texas. All ?the routes? <v Stewart Udall>will terminate in storage reservoirs. <v Stewart Udall>Water will then be distributed to individual landowners. <v Stewart Udall>It is not technically feasible to pump water back into the aquifer. <v Stewart Udall>A couple of other minor detail, all the routes go uphill. <v Stewart Udall>An average of about 2000 feet in elevation. <v Stewart Udall>Multiple pumping stations will be required. <v Stewart Udall>All the routes will cost money. <v Stewart Udall>About 10 billion dollars for route B to 30 billion for route C. <v Stewart Udall>And those estimates are a combination of 1977 and 1981 prices. <v Wes Jackson>If they were to replace uh what is withdrawn from <v Wes Jackson>the Ogallala in one year, which is around 14 million acre <v Wes Jackson>feet, if they were to replace it during the irrigation

<v Wes Jackson>season, by withdrawing water from the Missouri at Kansas City, <v Wes Jackson>the Missouri River, during the irrigation season would be dry <v Wes Jackson>immediately below the suction pipe. <v Duncan Ellison>How do I react to people talking that <v Duncan Ellison>o- outside of the area, that over my dead body, you'll get our water? <v Duncan Ellison>Uh I take this with a grain of salt. <v Duncan Ellison>Uh they have a bargaining position and I I feel like they're using it. <v Duncan Ellison>In uh the Missouri River, for instance, uh is not adjudicated <v Duncan Ellison>by any one state or does the water belong to any one state. <v Duncan Ellison>It belongs to the people of the United States. <v Duncan Ellison>And after that, water rights are adjudicated. <v Duncan Ellison>If indeed there is surplus there, uh, I question who <v Duncan Ellison>is to say that you can have that water. <v Wes Jackson>Now, we better also pay attention whether in fact, some of the <v Wes Jackson>push to move that water is not, in fact, coming

<v Wes Jackson>from industry. That is maybe it's just a uh it's <v Wes Jackson>coming under the uh the guise of helping agriculture when in fact, <v Wes Jackson>uh perhaps those that are interested in energy development in the Rocky Mountain region, <v Wes Jackson>you know, over there where they're gonna get all that coal and shale and ?saw? <v Wes Jackson>on the news national sacrifice area that's supposed to solve our problems. <v Duncan Ellison>Water importation must be in place uh in the southern <v Duncan Ellison>high plain uh within the next 40 years. <v Duncan Ellison>Uh after a 4 after the 40 year period, then we're <v Duncan Ellison>we're in real trouble if it's not in place. <v Wes Jackson>[rooster cawing] Look, those guys play. <v Wes Jackson>They drink whiskey out of the same bottle. <v Wes Jackson>That's what it amounts to. <v Wes Jackson>Uh, they are all in to um <v Wes Jackson>economic growth and development for themselves. <v Wes Jackson>That is the secular religion in this society.

<v Wes Jackson>And uh I- it doesn't surprise me that <v Wes Jackson>uh some outfit that has a Chamber of Commerce mentality is <v Wes Jackson>going to uh is going to promote streng- strength through <v Wes Jackson>exhaustion. <v Stewart Udall>The High Plains Council is due to present its report to Congress in the spring of 1982. <v Stewart Udall>And most people are betting that one or more of the big water import plans <v Stewart Udall>will be recommended. But if that is the case, big hurdles lie ahead. <v Stewart Udall>Some of them are at the national level. <v Stewart Udall>We have no national water policy. <v Stewart Udall>We have no national agricultural production policy either. <v Stewart Udall>And with the shift in responsibility for resource decision making to the states, <v Stewart Udall>there are big problems there. State water laws are not uniform. <v Stewart Udall>Individual rights vary and Indian rights have not been defined in some Western <v Stewart Udall>states. And of course, there are the barge men on the Missouri and the <v Stewart Udall>cities and industries downstream that want to use the same water.

<v Stewart Udall>It's clear a major fight is looming and one would have to be an optimist <v Stewart Udall>to feel that any of these plans could be implemented by the end of the century. <v Wes Jackson>I think that it's uh it's foolish [wind blowing] for people to <v Wes Jackson>not make contingency plans. <v Wes Jackson>And if they just assume that it's going to be business as usual when that water <v Wes Jackson>is gone, because we will be able to pull it in from somewhere else, then they're not <v Wes Jackson>reading the the track record of humanity. <v Wes Jackson>And the track record of humanity has numerous examples of people running low <v Wes Jackson>on their resources and having to quit an area. <v Wes Jackson>And if we assume that we're immune to it simply because we're on a young continent, <v Wes Jackson>which we're aging more rapidly than any continent in the history of the earth, <v Wes Jackson>uh then we're just going to uh we're just going to go the way of the rest. <v Wes Jackson>And it's another way of saying that education makes no difference. <v Stewart Udall>Wes Jackson is working to bring back the prairie.

<v Stewart Udall>[Wes inaudibly speaking] He's developing perennial grain crops. <v Stewart Udall>Crops that will require less water and less energy to produce. <v Stewart Udall>It's a very exciting concept. <v Stewart Udall>The work of hundreds of other agriculture researchers goes on, but it is <v Stewart Udall>too little, too late to save the Ogallala. <v Stewart Udall>Transporting water from the Missouri or the Arkansas will not replenish the <v Stewart Udall>Ogallala. Imported water will grow crops, but the tremendous <v Stewart Udall>cost of the project might make high plains cotton as costly as silk <v Stewart Udall>and wheat as expensive as wild rice. <v Stewart Udall>There is no real solution to the problem of the Ogallala except perhaps to wait. <v Stewart Udall>To wait 10 or 15 million years for the rain and the runoff <v Stewart Udall>to recharge the aquifer. <v Stewart Udall>But we can't afford to wait. <v Stewart Udall>We can't afford to wait for a national water policy which respects the limits <v Stewart Udall>of this region. Nor can we afford to wait until other aquifers are pumped dry, <v Stewart Udall>or other rivers and lakes are rendered unusable by pollution.

<v Stewart Udall>We can't afford to wait because man hasn't learned to make water or learned to live <v Stewart Udall>without it. [music plays] <v Jerry Wilhelm>Eventually <v Jerry Wilhelm>we're gonna lose [quick inaudible auctioning] this whole area, a way <v Jerry Wilhelm>of life. We'll be lost completely all the way around. <v Jerry Wilhelm>My dad bought this farm in 1932, he raised 5

<v Jerry Wilhelm>of us kids on this particular piece of land. <v Jerry Wilhelm>And I have taken it over and I have raised 10 kids in this <v Jerry Wilhelm>place. My boys have big <v Jerry Wilhelm>need to uh keep this. <v Jerry Wilhelm>And we keep farming and I said, boys, we can't do it. <v Jerry Wilhelm>We can't do it. [inaudible auctioning]