Groundwater Exploitation in the High Plains

The High Plains region was once called the Great American Desert and thought to be, in the words of explorer Stephen Long, “wholly unfit for cultivation.”

Now we know that beneath the surface, unbeknownst to the explorers and early settlers, lies the Ogallala aquifer, an underground formation that stretches for 800 miles from the Texas panhandle to South Dakota. It holds more water than Lake Huron. Indeed, the Ogallala has been referred to as the sixth Great Lake. It is the water pumped for ...