May. 08, 2006 - 18:47 MDT

SPARE A DRINK ?

In my mind glimmers an old cartoon I saw in our neighborhood movie when I was a kid. The tune was "Danse Macabre" but the visual action was "dem dry bones" getting together in various combinations and dancing to the tune. Bizarre ? Yes. Funny ? Yes to me it was -- THEN.

But in the back of my mind as I write, those capering bones are doing their thing, perhaps an omen of what is to come for the human race. All accompanied by Danse Macabre.

An article written by Peter Letheby, a newspaper editor and columnist in Grand Island, Neb. He wrote this column for the Land Institute's Prairie Writers Circle in Salina, Kan.

I will not bold or italicize any of it, quoted here in full:

SUCKING THE WEST DRY

"If you check out an atlas of California, you'll notice that Owens Lake is filled in with white, not blue. That's because Los Angeles sucked it dry decades ago. Las Vegas is considering similar plunder of groundwater elsewhere in Nevada. And there are many other cities -- Denver, Phoenix, Houston, Tampa, to name a few -- that have chosen to push nature's limits."

Closer to my Nebraska home, I watch the continuing plunder of the Great Plains' Ogalalla Aquifer, the largest underground reservoir in the United States and one of the largest on the planet. It once held as much water as Lake Huron. It is a treasure that took millennia to accumulate. Remarkably, it could cease to be a water source within another generation."

"And for what ? To provide water to irrigators who grow surplus, subsidized corn -- the thirstiest of grain crops. Much of this overproduction is in semi-arid Nebraska west of the 98th meridian."

"Nebraska's Ogallala drawdowns aren't yet as dramatic as elsewhere in the Plains (it's as much as 200 feet in the Texas Panhandle, according to the U.S. geological Survey). But Nebraska is pumping hard to catch up. And it is important to remember as a 2001 Kansas State University study points out, that only 15 percent of this vast underground ocean is physically and economically feasible to bring to the surface."

"Other big losers in this heartland water grab are rivers and streams fed by the Ogallala. The Arkansas River, the nation's fifth longest, once began its healthy flow near Leadville, Colo. Now a majority of the time there is no flow in the river at Dodge City, Kan., nearly 450 miles downstream. The river's effective headwater is another 85 miles eastward in Great Bend. The historic Platte River, which guided explorers and settlers westward in the 18th and 19th centuries, has effectively dried up in central Nebraska the past five summers."

"I would object less if the groundwater-irrigated areas in my state produced valuable crops that can't be grown elsewhere. but this country needs more corn like an alcoholic needs happy hour. Our flawed federal farm policy is partially liable. The government's price guarantee for corn encourages overproduction, which further drives down the crop's price, which further increases subsidy payments."

"Tragically many of those who have been chugging so much water out of the ground for so long, and those who have sat idly by and watched it happen, seem most adept at blaming and justifying. The drought that has plagued much of the western, southern and central Plains since 2000 gets most of the blame. It's easier to fault something beyond our control than those who actually use the water."

"Nebraska's featured solution is this: "Drill 550 wells in the fragile Sandhills -- the nation's largest dune grassland, almost as big as West Virginia -- silphon out 450,000 acre-feet of water a year, and send it by canal to corn-growers."

"Sounds like happy hour to me."

"Proposed legislation introduced earlier this year in Nebraska would tax water consumption. Those who use the most would pay the most tax. More than 90 percent of the aquifer's water is used for crop irrigation, according to the Geological Survey."

"The bill never made it out of committee."

"There are other options that offer some semblance of sustainability: retiring cropland, prohibiting the drilling of new wells, purchasing groundwater rights, shifting federal subsidies from crop overproduction to environmental stewardship."

"Whatever we do, it must be substantial. Once the Ogallala is drawn down beyond repair -- and we are nearing that point, some hydrologists and geologists say -- the exodus from America's rural heartland shifts from second to third gear. communities dependent on groundwater for consumption, development and recreation will wither and die."

"We will be left with yet another illustration of an all-too-common American mindset: short on vision, mired in denial and unable to comprehend nature's limits.

+++++++

And it's not only the Ogallala aquifer, but the entire arid west that is in danger to my way of looking at it.

Water and the scarcity of it has been a bone of contention ever since people from the eastern part of our country went west to establish homes, farms and ranches. Water holes and streams were few and far between and many a small war was fought over the right to use water from one source or another.

And it is getting worse, New developments, people coming to Denver to live, construction going mad. Old Lowry Air Force Base (given back to Denver by the military) is now almost completely full of residences and businesses. Old Stapleton International Airport being developed apace adds to the demand for water. Aside from that are the multiplicity of apartment, condo, and homes being built across the entire metro area.

And it is in our state that some commercial outfit wanted to drill west of the Sangre de Cristo mountains into the vast store of underground water there -- and pipe it out of the state.

Our City of Denver has been piping water to town from the mountains ever since I can remember -- and is hated for it by those who live in the mountains.

Sure it could be possible to control the demand for water other than limit lawn watering days, which to my mind just drives up the price of the water we do use -- water department must have money to operate you know.

What about newcomers, homeowners and businesses alike paying extra fees to connect to city water ? Discrimination ? Okay, everybody pays more -- we will be doing so anyhow soon.

Seems as if the general population of people and businesses are growing faster than cities can find, process and supply water. Infrastructure is expensive. Just ask folks who lived out in the country back a few years ago. If they wanted a telephone, essentially they had to pay to have the line strung to their house. Much like suburban folks had to pay to have water and sewer pipes laid to their neighborhood.

But we are growing faster than we can cope.

I remember looking down from a jet going across country and seeing these vast circles of lawn grass being watered. A commercial crop for sure, a money crop to suply the folks who demanded lawn grass.

That is all very well in country that has the water to support it. Oregon, west of the Cascades grows a bunch of it, and grass seed too. They have the water, why not ?

Denver water department for years has been pushing xeriscaping -- growing plants that use little water, people ignore it. Ground cover that uses little water is spurned.

Efforts to control the situation are knocked in the head by commercial and agricultural enterprises as well.

I couldn't figure out how to bold and italicize Mr. Letheby's article, seemed to me that every word should be bold, italicized and capitalized . . . . . . . . . . I wonder how long it will be before I am standing on a street corner, tin cup in hand and saying Buddy can you SPARE A DRINK ? . . . . . . . . .

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