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<text>CLICK INSIDE BOX TO HIDE IT!!Scientists estimate that less than one percent of the water on earth is available for human use. The oceans comprise more than 97 percent of the water on earth, while glaciers lock up another two percent of the earth's water. Of the percentage available for human use, half lies at least a half mile below the surface of the earth, currently beyond the reach of conventional and economical drilling technologies. The remaining water supply is allotted to rivers, lakes, and ground water.In terms of precipitation, not all regions are treated equally. While the Pacific Northwest and New England have abundant rain and snowfall, the population is growing fastest in the South and Southwest where water is less plentiful. Each year the demand for water increases. In some cases, water is being withdrawn from aquifers faster than it can be replenished.Pollution compounds the problem by reducing usable water supplies. Water's ability to easily dissolve and absorb other substances means it is rarely pure. Water dissolves salts and minerals from the soil and carries these residues into streams and oceans. When water evaporates, it leaves these salts and minerals behind and is purified. But when it condenses again in the atmosphere and falls, it can absorb pollutant particles in the atmosphere and deposit them on the land.Some pollutants are discarded directly into the earth's waters by man. Water can also be polluted by heat. Many factories use water for cooling, often returning this water to the stream at a considerably warmer temperature than when removed. Fish and plant life often cannot tolerate the increased temperature and die.In areas primarily dependent on underground water supplies, and others which are replenished slowly, conservation is the key. Simple devices within the home to restrict the flow of water from faucets and showers can decrease water waste. More efficient irrigation systems and cleaning up water used by industry can also help preserve supplies.However, most water cannot be conserved through a "non-use" approach. Water is mobile; it flows through and into the ground; it evaporates out of and seeps from reservoirs; it evaporates from lakes, streams and oceans; it is transpired from plants; and it is locked up in snow and ice. Thus, if water is not used, it is eventually lost until it is replenished. Although water supplies are replenished, the supply varies and is regulated by the water cycle.The Energist. National Energy Foundation. Salt Lake City, Utah. no date.For more information, write:National Energy Foundation5160 Wiley Post Way, Suite 200Salt Lake City, Utah 84116(801) 539-1406click inside box to hide it!</text>
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<text>The Ogallala Aquifer is as large in total area as the entire state of California. It is one of the richest agricultural areas in the world and produces 40% of the country's beef cattle, and a great deal of its corn, wheat, cotton and soybeans. It is slowly drying up. Besides conservation, a system of dams and canals has been suggested to bring water from rivers that cross the area to the farmlands needing the water.Questions1. If any one state uses dams and canals to divert water from the river in its state to increase the water supply to farmers, what will happen to the river in the other states where the river flows?2. What happens to a city downstream from where the stream is dammed up or water is taken for a canal?3. Do you think any system of canals can be undertaken by one state without including the others? Why?4. Do you think it would be a good thing for all the states to join in a common project to solve the problem?5. Do you think the project would take a long time and a lot of money? Why?Mapping1. Identify the 8 states on the map of the Ogallala Aquifer.2. Using an atlas or geography book, identify the 5 rivers shown on the map.3. Besides the conservation measures mentioned in the reading, can you think of any others which would cause farmers to use less water?4. Much of the water taken from rivers for canals will have to travel uphill. Pumps, powered by gas or electricity, will need to be used, expending a lot of energy. How would you justify the use of such energy to make better use of water?</text>
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<text>Questions:1. If any one state uses dams and canals to divert water from the river in its state to increase the water supply to farmers, what will happen to the river in the other states where the river flows?2. What happens to a city downstream from where the stream is dammed up or water is taken for a canal?3. Do you think any system of canals can be undertaken by one state without including the others? Why?4. Do you think it would be a good thing for all the states to join in a common project to solve the problem?5. Do you think the project would take a long time and a lot of money? Why?Mapping1. Identify the 8 states on the map of the Ogallala Aquifer.2. Using an atlas or geography book, identify the 5 rivers shown on the map.3. Besides the conservation measures mentioned in the reading, can you think of any others which would cause farmers to use less water?4. Much of the water taken from rivers for canals will have to travel uphill. Pumps, powered by gas or electricity, will need to be used, expending a lot of energy. How would you justify the use of such energy to make better use of water?</text>
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<text>SUMMARY OF AQUIFER AND WELL CHARACTERISTICS IN NEW MEXICOWell characteristics Aquifer name and description Depth(ft) Yield(gal/min) RemarksCommon May Common May Range Exceed Range ExceedValley-fill aquifers:50-200 500 100-500 3,000 Principal aquifers Sand, gravel, silt , andare alluvial and lowclay; mostly alluvial and terrace deposits of terrace deposits. Mostly unconfined.the Quaternary and Tertiary age, associated with Rio Grande, Rio Chama and Pecos, and San Juan Rivers. Water quality is suitable for most uses.Basin fill aquifers: 100-500 3,000 100-5003,000 Principal aquifers are Santa FeSand, gravel, silt, andGroup of Qaternary and clay; mostly fluvial,Tertiary age in Rio lacustrine, and eolianGrande valley, bolson deposits. Unconfineddeposits in the central and confined.and southwestern part of State, and High Plains aquifer of Tertiary age, which consists of Ogallala Formation and associated alluvial and eolian deposits in the eastern part of the State. Locally, water may not be suitable for domestic or municipal use because of excessive salinity.Sandstone aquifers: 200-2,000 6,000 50-1001,200 Principal aquifers are Ojo Mostly very fine and Alamo Sandstone, Naci-medium-grained sand-miento and San Jose stone of marine andFormations of Tertiarycontinental origin.age, Dakota Sandstone,Usually confined Gallup Sandstone, except in outcrop Dalton Sandstone, areas.Member of the Crevasse Canyon Formation, Point Lookout Sandstone, Menefee Formation, Cliff House Sandstone of Cretaceous age; Canyon Member of Morrison Formation of Jurassic age. Water quality near outcrop areas ordinarily suitable for most uses.Limestone aquifers: 500-1,000 1,500 400-8003,000 Principal aquifer is the San Mostly limestone,Andres Limestone of dolomite, gypsum,Permian age in Pecos anhydrite. UsuallyRiver valley, Rio Sanconfined.Jose valley, and locally in part of Guadalupe County. Locally, water may not be suitable for municipal and domestic use because chlorides may exceed 500 mg/L</text>
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<text>You are about search for bibliographical information in the water resources database, brought to you by the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and the USDA Forest Service Partners in environmental education. To start browsing through the bibliography, just click on the mouse.</text>
<text>ThanksI've had a lot of help. The essay has been read by Kathy Dannreuther, Zada Edgar, Richard Felger, Nancy Ferguson, Bernard Fontana, Lewis Kreinberg, Barbara Kreinberg, Gary Nabhan, Lawrence Clark Powell, and William Appleman Williams. They all tried to make it betterI got interested in the desert and groundwater problems while working at the Office of Arid Lands Studies, University of Arizona, Tucson. Their support is in a class by itself.Dan Matson, a linguist at the University of Arizona and a native of these parts, tried to explain to me the rhythm of life in the Sonoran desert before the post-World-War-ll boom. His contributions are unfootnoted and omnipresent in the text.Lawrence Clark Powell of the Graduate Library School, University of Arizona, read the essay, encouraged me, and did the one thing I could never do on my own: find a publisher. I'm grateful.In early 1975, I spent a few days with ecologist H.T. Odum. His work is seldom cited in this essay but it was constantly present in my mind. He pushed the rhetoric of ecology past metaphor and into palpable reality for me. I hope he will forgive what I've done to his song.There would be no book without Bernard Fontana of the Arizona State Museum. He shared his vast knowledge of the Sonoran desert and its people. And he taught me. Without his help, advice, and criticism, I could not have done this essay.Finally, I'd like to thank the late J. Newfoundland. He didn't give a damn about this book, and his healthy perspective on such matters saved me from completely losing my own.Bowden, Charles. "Killing the Hidden Waters." Austin: University of Texas Press. 1977.</text>
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<text>Bowden, Charles. "Killing the Hidden Waters." Austin: University of Texas Press. 1977.</text>
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<text>Driscoll, Fletcher G., ed. "Ground Water and Wells." 2nd ed. St. Paul, Minn.: Johnson Division. 1986.</text>
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<text> Contains information on the origin of water, the formation of aquifers, occurrence and movement of ground water, well hydrolics (cone of depression), and the intelligent use of ground water.</text>
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<text>From: jhurst@ese.ogi.edu (Jim Hurst)Newsgroups: sci.environmentSubject: Re: California Drought ReportSummary: Water conservation works.Keywords: Hey, Ho, Instream Flow!Message-ID: <26016@ogicse.ogi.edu>Date: 28 Aug 91 16:13:53 GMTArticle-I.D.: ogicse.26016References: <25638@ogicse.ogi.edu> <1991Aug24.025854.27079@talon.ucs.orst.edu>Sender: news@ogicse.ogi.eduOrganization: Bossie And the Ground Maggots (B.A.G.M.)Lines: 104Paul Cass writes:>I (Jim Hurst) wrote:>>>>>>This is not to say that the situation is hopeless, just that we can't >>expect much progress as long as the federal government foots the bill>>for any lamebrained thing agribusiness wants. My favorite example of >>a progressive and innovative (private) irrigation project is the High Plains >>Irrigation District in Texas. Kudos to them for a creative, efficient >>response to the problem of overdrafting the groundwater in the Ogalalla >>Aquifer. Their job isn't done yet, but they've come a long way. >>>>Would you mind discussing what has been done to save the Ogalalla Aquifer?>The last info I had (very dated) was that the aquifer was in serious >trouble and that some folks were projecting that it would be dry by 2020.>Also that the withdrawal rate was about 8x the recharge rate and that the>water depth was as much as 6000 ft. The Ogallala Aquifer stretches from the west edge of the Corn Belt through Oklahoma to the Texas/New Mexico border and north through Nebraska, and is the West's largest underground body of water. For decades it has supported rangeland, dryland farming, and limited irrigation. After WWII, large new areas were put into production using center-pivot irrigation schemes. More lands being under production led to a spree of speculation, aided by federal tax breaks supporting irrigation.The groundwater is least plentiful in the southern part of the aquifer, and the recharge the most minimal, so problems were felt first here, particularly around the Texas High Plains. (Actually, flying over the aquifer, you can detect the "economic edge" of the aquifer by the brown center pivot circles on the western and southern edge, for those of you who like to sit by the window...). The increased energy costs of the 70s and the fact that the aquifer was dropping 5 feet per year of more signaled the end of the center pivot boom.The Texas High Plains depend almost entirely on groundwater irrigation for agriculture, with a precipitation of 12 to 16 inches per year. Chief crops are mainly cotton, barley, sorghum and corn. After despairing of federal rescue (*after* spending quite a bit of public cash studying impossibly expensive _structural_ water importation schemes), the High Plains Underground Water Conservation District decided to come to its own rescue. Ten years of diligent, self-financed conservation efforts have resulted in 25 to 40 per cent region wide reductions in water use. Note that this is much higher than the maximum theoretically attainable in federal interagency reports on conservation methods applicable to irrigation. 8^)What they did: 1) Replacing unlined ditches with pipelines. Obvious, cheap. 2) Changing furrow irrigation strategies. Sprinkler irrigation is common elsewhere, but the High Plainsmen still use furrows. The change was two pronged: reduce the length of the furrows (from say 1/2 to 1/4 mile), and installing surge valves on the pipelines, which shuts off water between rows and lessens the pooling at the end of the furrow.These two strategies improved efficiency 10 to 40 percent. But they also: 3) Improved tailwater ponding. Tailwater is the water that pools at the bottom of the furrow. They now mostly catch it in pits (to reduce evaporation losses) and pump it back and reuse it. 4) Added soil moisture monitoring. Counting tech and labor, these cost around $2/acre, and can yield benefits of up to $50 in reduced water and energy use and improved yields. 5) Switched to low head sprinkler systems. On the Texas plains, a sprinkler can evaporate around 40% of the water it shoots out before it enters the ground, yet low head systems can reduce this to around 2%. It costs about $10,000 to retrofit, and energy saving in a year are reported to be greater than this.After these changes, the water table in the region, which had been declining 2 to 5 feet per year, actually rose nearly a foot between 1985 and 1988, in a period of normal to slightly above normal rainfall. The rate of natural recharge is so slight that curtailed pumping is responsible for most, if not all, of this improvement.What is unique about this case is that they rely on unadjudicated groundwater. The law is that the groundwater under a farmer's land is his, but in a larger sense it is a commons. So few of the factors inhibiting a major conservation effort that are present in say, California, played a role. They receive no hidden federal subsidies that make it cheaper to waste Ogallala water than to save it. They have no interstate compact agreements that encourage continuation of wasteful historic water use patterns.Other factors that helped were access to technical expertise from Texas Tech, substantial leadership, and access to cheap loans from the state. But peer pressure to preserve a public resource and enlightened self interest are probably the most important features responsible for the the success of this pioneering conservation program.>Given the critical nature of water sources it sure would be nice to hear>that this one was out of the woods. I certainly wouldn't go that far. I would say this effort proves that substantial water conservation efforts can be economically profitable, without changing the current mix of crops, and that such efforts become most likely when groundwater resources begin to become uneconomic and continued abuse of the resource is not subsidized. Jim</text>
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<text>By Chuck McCutcheonJOURNAL STAFF WRITERHugging much of New Mexico's eastern border and covering more than 9,000 square miles in the state, the Ogallala Aquifer is a leading source of irrigation water for east-side farmers.In 1985, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, estimated pumpage from the aquifer was 653,000 acre-feet ΓÇö or 583 million gallons ΓÇö a day, much of it for irrigation.In New Mexico, just as everywhere else, the aquifer has been depleted over the years, with the greatest declines right along the Texas-New Mexico border. But within the last decade, the rate of depletion appears to have slowed.A Geological Survey report done last year says water levels in the aquifer in some areas of the state rose between 1981 and 1987 and the rate of decline was less rapid after 1980. It cites four reasons:ΓÇó A drop in irrigation requirements because of higher-than-average precipitation between 1981 and 1987.ΓÇó A drop in the amount of land used -- for irrigation due to unfavorable economic conditions and government incentives to reduce cultivated acreage.ΓÇó Changes in water-management practices by farmers.ΓÇó Recharge of the acquifer in some areas by infiltration of streamflow andprecipitation.The findings don't surprise Bruce Hinrichs, Curry County extension agent for New Mexico State University's Cooperative Extension Service. He said the energy crunch of the 1970s forced many farmers to rely less on irrigation.Nearly all of the land in Curry and Roosevelt counties sits above the aquifer's southeastern fringe, according to a Geological Survey map."It just got too expensive to pump a lot of water because of the crunch," he said. "In order to pump from 300 or 400 feetΓÇöthat's the average depth you need to go to find waterΓÇöit can cost a lot of money. So we're less dependent on irrigation than we were, say, 15 years ago."Irrigated acreage in Curry County has shrunk from around 220,000 acres to about 90,000, he said. In the 1970s, he added, the county probably had about 1,500 wells used for irrigation, "and I'd venture to say there's only around 900 right now."A 1980 Geological Survey map shows some of the heaviest declines in water levels of the aquifer occured in southeastern Curry and northeastern Quay counties. In once section near Clovis, the water level was found to have dropped by as much as 150 feet -- one of the heaviest declines anywhere in the aquifer.McCutcheon, Chuck. "Depletion of Aquifer Slows Down." Albuquerque Journal. 17 June 1990. E1.</text>
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<text>McCutcheon, Chuck. "Depletion of Aquifer Slows Down." Albuquerque Journal. 17 June 1990. E1.</text>
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<text>Sid MoodyThe Associated PressOgallala, Neb. -- A sign of terrible times on an abandoned sod hut in the 1800s on the treeless, dry, heartless heart of America."90 miles to wood, 20 miles to water. Gone back East to wife's family."A westbound migrant, aglow with his future on the High Plains: "This would be fine country if it just had water."A bitter sodbuster in reply: So would hell."Little did they know that onlyfeet below their dusty wagon ruts lay an underground ocean, one of Earth's miracles. It is called the Ogallala Aquifer.In its sands and gravel and strata buried enough fresh water to inundate all 50 states to almost 1 1/2 feet. It holds as much water as Lake Huron plus one-fifth of Lake Ontario.The Ogallala stretches from South Dakota and Wyoming south through Nebraska (which overlies two-thirds of its volume), Colorado, Kansas and Oklahoma to Texas and New Mexico.Once this was all dismissed as The Great American Desert. Modern irrigation has transformed it into an 800-mile green belt made possible by, in effect, upside-down rain.The Ogallala region today produces up to 40 percent of America's beef, 20 percent to 25 percent of its food and fiber, notably feed grains and cotton. This outp¨t that helps feed and clothe a nation was worth upward of $20 billion in 1989 and fuels and ancillary economy that may reach $50 billion.During the Dust Bowl's historic drought, haggard plainsmen watched red- eyed as their farms and ranchland blew away in the sleepless wind. Salvation lay but a pipe's length beneath their very feet. But they didn't have the tools to reach it. They do now.Irrigated farming can produce as much as three to four times more than dry-land farming. The Ogallala became found money. Pumping on a grand scale began in Texas where the High Plains became a mammoth cotton plantation.Envious farmers peered over their fences at what their irrigating neighborswere doing and the practice moved inexorably northward. In one region ofsouthwest Nebraska, 111,600 acres were irrigated in 1950. By 1983, 973,000 acres were. In Yuma County in northeast Colorado it was 11,000 acres in 1959 446,000 in 1987. The Lubbock, Texas area had 3,627 irrigation wells in 1953, 46,906 in 1989.Between 1940 and 1980. 400 million acre-feet of the Ogallala's 3.6 billion acre-feet were pumped to the thirsty wells. (An acre-foot covers an acre with 1 foot of water and equals 325,848 gallons.) The result was predictable.Water levels declined up to 200 feet in Texas, with 23 percent of the water gone as of 1983. Kansas has pumped 38 percent of its water by one estimate. Its farmers pumped 4.4 million acre-feet in 1985. About 40 million acre-feet remain underground. In Kit Carson County in Colorado, water tables have been dropping up to 5 feet annually.Good rainfall, dramatically rising costs of pumping fuel, state regulation, federal farm programs and a greater awareness of conservation have combined to stem the flood. Groundwater use declined 19 percent from 1980 to 1985.Many echo grain farmer Ed Ediger of Hampton, Neb.: "Let's leave some for our grandchildren."In Scott City, Kan., Keith Lebbin, state water district manager for west-central Kansas, describes the local situation as "bleak." But even something as ancient as agriculture is feeling the effects of technology.New techniques, new irrigation devices are coming from, of all places, Texas, where irrigators used to irrigate most Texanly. Innovations there promise to set a pattern that conceivably will make the aquifer a self-sustaining resource, or at least prolong its future unto Ediger's grandchildren's grandchildren."Today's farmer is much better educated about water," said Bill Kastner, a U.S. Geological Survey hydrologist.It took eons for geology and climate to make this national treasure. In less than a lifetime irrigation has pumped some of it dry. Since World War II new technology has released a flood far, far beyond nature's drip-by-drip ability to replace it.Water thickness in the agallala ranges from a few feet in Kansas and Colorado to 1,300 feet in the Nebraska Sand Hills. The average is 200 feet. Perhaps 11 percent of the aquifer has been pumped since the late 1930s. The maximum decline by 1980 was 200 feet in Floyd County in the Texas Panhandle. By one estimate a quarter of the aquifer will be gone by 2020.The aquifer has been both mindlessly squandered and utilized with great intelligence, foresight and self-restraint.In places, it is also slowly being contaminated. In 1987, Nebraska farmers and ranchers put 775,000 tons of fertilizer on the land. And 16,500 tons of pesticides and uncounted tons of herbicides. Cows and hogs produced an additional 235,000 tons of manure. Gradually quantities of this leached toward the water.Can the Ogallala survive the onslaught of man's insatiable hand on the spigot and chemical barrel? To be cautiously Delphic, maybe yes, maybe no. It depends if what can be done will be done. It is past high noon atop the Ogallala. But it is not, in most places, too late.Being underground—hence invisible—aquifers are not readily identified nor easily understood once discovered. A pioneer in Nebraska Territory could, and did, hit water digging a post hole. He can be forgiven for crediting good luck the deity or a forked dowser's stick. His mindset was local, hardly geological. Wiser heads than his had dismissed the region's potential out-right.Maj. Stephen H. Long explored the High Plains in 1819-20 to utter an all-time wowser in the annals of soothsaying:"In regard to this extensive section of the country, I do not hesitate in giving the opinion that it is almost wholly unfit for cultivation and of course uninhabitable by a people depending on agriculture for their subsistence."The High Plains are dry, not barren. The 10 inches of rain in the west, up to 30 in the extreme east are enough for native grass and cottonwoods in river bottoms. The Sand Hills are rolling. Kansas plains are so flat you could slide a steel shuffleboard disk till it dropped over the edge of the horizon.One of the first to put his ear not to the ground but below it was a Swiss geologist named Jules Marcou, who in 1854 was making a survey of the Texas Panhandle for the Army. Groundwater "may be found everywhere," he said, accurately. Sand Hill immigrants found you could poke a stick in the soil and the end would come up wet.Post-Civil War pioneers were misled by settling in during abnormally rainy years. The myth of The Great American Desert was replaced by another, the myth of the garden.In 1888 the Tascousa Pioneer in the Panhandle reported: "Wagon and wagons, rope-bottom chairs, towheads, brindle cows, yellow dogs and a pervading air of restlessness have poured through this week in the direction suggested by Horace Greeley."Boosters and fast-buck speculators urged men young and old to follow journalist Greeley's advice to go west to a "veritable paradise."Land promoter Charles Dana Wilber gave birth to another myth "Rain follows the plow." It doesn't.Drought hit western Kansas in 1886 and hung on. Blizzards in 1887, drove out cattlemen in droves. In 1889 there were dust storms. When they were done, Floyd County in Texas had 55 farms where 176 had been. The population of western Kansas was down by half."In God we trusted, in Kansas we busted," became a truism.The vital fact of water in settling the plains is underscored by the names of towns that sprung up at self-describing locations: Big Spring and Sweetwater in Texas; Shallow Water, Kan.; Broadwater, Neb.; Cheyene Wells and Last Chance (for water), Colo.Once Dug, wells produced bounteous water, giving birth to another myth. The groundwater came from an underground river of limitless flow from somewhere up near Yellowstone. An enduring myth of an inexhaustible supply that was to bode the Ogallala no good.Meanwhile, homesteaders came and went with the cycle of rain and drought. Noted one observer: "Every such wave left behind it a mass of human wreckage ... broken fortunes, deserted farms and ruined homes." The search for water took every expedient, wrote historian Walter Prescott Webb, "from prayer to dynamite."When Greeley finally took his own advice on a visit west in 1858, he said of the plains: "A desert indeed!"But technology was at hand. In 1854, John Burnham took the idea of a self-governing windmill to Daniel Halladay, a mechanic in Connecticut. The result became a ubiquitous landmark of the plains. It used the eternal wind to pump shallow water for stock, a few rows of fruit trees, a garden, the Saturday night bath.As late as 1890, John Wesley Powell, head of the U.S. Geological Survey and explorer of the Colorado River, could say that all the artesian wells in the Dakotas couldn't irrigate a single county.But down in the Panhandle was D.L. McDonald, a land agent, former druggist and salesman of automobiles from Pennsylvania who had been told to get out of doors for his health. He was as "amazed as Moses" to see water gushing out of the ground through an irrigation pipe. By 1909 he had hooked a steam engine to a wellhead and became known as "the father of irrigation." The Amarillo News huzzahed that there was enough water under Deaf Smith County to "float the navies of the world."McDonald's pump, combined with the discovery of oil in Texas, set off a flood of irrigation by gasoline pumps. Excursion trains brought in prospective farmers from around the nation. Lubbock County's population in 1900 was 293. Twenty years later it was 11,906.After World War II, with war bond money in their jeans, a devastated Europe to be fed and the development of an efficient deep well turbine pump, farmers rode a crest of irrigation. In 1948, enter Frank Zybach.Early irrigation required naturally flat or artificially leveled terrain watered by ditched furrows. It was wasteful of water—a lot ran off the field without recovery pits, which were uncommon—and manpower. Pipes and siphon hoses had to beconstantly moved, which required manpower. But cheap oil and gas wells to run the pumps were sometimes right alongside the water in the same wheatfield, so who cared? Zybach.What he invented is called the water pivot, that thing on wheels that looks like a quarter-mile centipede and swings around the wellhead making Nebraska from the air look like it's wearing polka dots. Circles of fortune they're called.What the pivot could do was put down 2 inches of water on 133 acres in its 72-hour cycle. It could traverse hill and dale, thereby opening up millions of unflat acres to irrigation. Greatest thing since the tractor, farmers said.In 1950 there were 1.86 million acres under irrigation in the Texas High Plains. Four years later this doubled. For the entire Ogallala region, less than 4 million acre-feet were pumped from the aquifer in 1949. Twenty years later 15 million were.Ignorance got mixed in with the water. "We had farmers pouring fertilizer down the well to pump out through the pivot," recalls Ron Milner, water district manager for the Upper Republican River in southwest Nebraska."We didn't know what the hell we were doing," admits Wayne Wyatt, district water manager in Lubbock."We can make that sucker last indefinitely," says Wyatt from a lifetime of experience. Dissenters demur. The future depends some on the gods of aquifers. More depends on many who finally comprehend that invisible gift from those mountains to the west.Moody, Sid. "Can Man Close Aquifer Spigot?" Associatied Press. Published in Albuquerque Journal. 17 June 1990. E1.</text>
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<text>Moody, Sid. "Can Man Close Aquifer Spigot?" Associatied Press. Published in Albuquerque Journal. 17 June 1990. E1.</text>
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<text>Nickerson, Edward L. Aquifer tests in the flood-plain alluvium and Santa Fe group at the Rio Grande near Canutillo, El Paso County, Texas Albuquerque, N.M.:Dept. of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey; Denver, Colo. : Books and Open-File Reports [distributor], 1989. SUBJECTS 1. Water, Underground--Texas--Canutillo--Testing. 2. Water quality--Texas--Canutillo--Testing. LOCATION <ZIM SELGOVT> CALL NUMBER # I 19.42/4:89-4011 </text>
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<text>Nickerson, Edward L. Aquifer tests in the flood-plain alluvium and Santa Fe group at the Rio Grande near Canutillo, El Paso County, Texas Albuquerque, N.M.:Dept. of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey; Books and Open-File Reports [distributor], 1989. </text>
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<text>Scientists estimate that less than one percent of the water on earth is available for human use. The oceans comprise more than 97 percent of the water on earth, while glaciers lock up another two percent of the earth's water. Of the percentage available for human use, half lies at least a half mile below the surface of the earth, currently beyond the reach of conventional and economical drilling technologies. The remaining water supply is allotted to rivers, lakes, and ground water.In terms of precipitation, not all regions are treated equally. While the Pacific Northwest and New England have abundant rain and snowfall, the population is growing fastest in the South and Southwest where water is less plentiful. Each year the demand for water increases. In some cases, water is being withdrawn from aquifers faster than it can be replenished.Pollution compounds the problem by reducing usable water supplies. Water's ability to easily dissolve and absorb other substances means it is rarely pure. Water dissolves salts and minerals from the soil and carries these residues into streams and oceans. When water evaporates, it leaves these salts and minerals behind and is purified. But when it condenses again in the atmosphere and falls, it can absorb pollutant particles in the atmosphere and deposit them on the land.Some pollutants are discarded directly into the earth's waters by man. Water can also be polluted by heat. Many factories use water for cooling, often returning this water to the stream at a considerably warmer temperature than when removed. Fish and plant life often cannot tolerate the increased temperature and die.In areas primarily dependent on underground water supplies, and others which are replenished slowly, conservation is the key. Simple devices within the home to restrict the flow of water from faucets and showers can decrease water waste. More efficient irrigation systems and cleaning up water used by industry can also help preserve supplies.However, most water cannot be conserved through a "non-use" approach. Water is mobile; it flows through and into the ground; it evaporates out of and seeps from reservoirs; it evaporates from lakes, streams and oceans; it is transpired from plants; and it is locked up in snow and ice. Thus, if water is not used, it is eventually lost until it is replenished. Although water supplies are replenished, the supply varies and is regulated by the water cycle.For more information, write:National Energy Foundation5160 Wiley Post Way, Suite 200Salt Lake City, Utah 84116(801) 539-1406</text>
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<text>The Energist. National Energy Foundation. Salt Lake City, Utah. no date.</text>
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<text>A GROUND WATER GLOSSARY(PART l)Aquifer - A geological formation capable of storing and transmitting significant volumes of water.Confined aquifer - An aquifer which is overlain by confining impermeable rock. Also known as an artesian aquifer.Effluent - A substance that flows out; the treated or untreated liquid that flows out of a waste treatment plant, sewer, or an industial out-fall.Ground water - Water contained in an area underground in which every available space is filled with water.Impervious rock - Layer of rock generally considered under normal situations to be incapable of being penetrated.Non-point pollution - A contaminant that cannot be traced to one source, but rather comes from many nonspecific sources.Percolation/Infiltration - Downward flow or seepage of water through the pores or spaces of rock or soil.Point source pollution - A contaminant that can be traced to an individual source.Produced water - The waste water pumped from oil and natural gas wells and disposed of at the well site or at commercial disposal facilities.Total Dissolved Solids - The total amount of solid materials found to be dissolved, in a unit of water.Unconfined aquifer - An aquifer not overlain by impermeable rock. The water level in the aquifer may rise and fall according to the volume of water stored, a variable dependent upon seasonal cycles of natural recharge.Water table - The level below the surface where ground water is found.Please contact Denise Bleakly through the WIN office if you have any questions or other terms to be included on Water Ways. (505) 262-1862.</text>
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<text>Water Information Network Review. Albuquerque. V1.N3. p6 1989.</text>
