Ogallala Blue: Water and Life on the High Plains [Hardcover]

William Ashworth (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 19, 2006 | ISBN-10: 0393058425 | ISBN-13: 978-0393058420 | Edition: 1

The story of a crucial, dwindling natural resource: an invisible ocean of fresh water under the Great Plains.

The Ogallala aquifer contains enough water to fill Lake Erie not once but nine times over, and it stretches from Texas to South Dakota, from Colorado almost to Nebraska. Every year, five trillion gallons are pumped out for irrigation, and if the aquifer went dry (or, more accurately, when it goes dry), $20 billion worth of food and fiber would disappear practically overnight.

In this lively, carefully researched narrative, William Ashworth tells the history of the Ogallala, from its formation after the retreat of the glaciers through to its uncertain future. The most dramatic part of that history deals with efforts to exploit the hidden waters, starting with the primitive wells of long-vanished tribes, through the invention of the center-pivot sprinkler, and on to ever more sophisticated extraction technologies. This is an account of people as well as water, with many vignettes of those living in the shadow of the Ogallala's decline and ultimate demise.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

People of the Great Plains have been drawing on the underground water of the sprawling Ogallala Aquifer for centuries. But it took a failed tinkerer's single inspired invention in 1948—the center-pivot sprinkler system—to precipitate this century's looming crisis over access to potable water, on land stretching from South Dakota to Texas and from Colorado almost to Iowa. The sprinkler (followed by ever more sophisticated water extraction systems) sprayed water across fields of corn and cotton more efficiently, reports Ashworth (The Late, Great Lakes). But this in turn led to an increase in land under cultivation—a situation that, compounded by suburban sprawl in the southwest, means that for the past half-century, water that had collected below the surface over many millennia is now being consumed far more quickly than nature can replenish it. Ashworth recounts some conservation efforts that could achieve a "tenuous balance" between supply and demand, but he doesn't hold out much hope that years of rampant mining of the aquifer's once-vast liquid resources can be reversed. Firsthand vignettes about efforts to introduce dryland farming techniques and reintroduce buffalo herds add some zip to the narrative, but for a doomsday book about a dire situation, the text is often pretty dry. Map. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Hidden below the eight states that compose the Great Plains lies a vast ocean known as the Ogallala Aquifer. Supporting 14 million acres of crops that represent one-fifth of the country's total agricultural harvest, this primary source of groundwater affects everything from the food we eat to the clothing we wear. Deep enough to fill Lake Erie nine times over, it is immense, but it is not infinite, and this precious aquifer is going dry. It is a question of when, not if, and the management of this essential resource will be one of the most daunting challenges of the twenty-first century. Tracing the dramatic history of the aquifer from its Ice Age formation to its current precarious state, Ashworth presents a state-by-state montage of the people who have both championed its preservation and orchestrated its destruction. Ashworth deftly clarifies and personalizes the critical economic, environmental, and humanitarian issues at stake, forcefully connecting the geology of the planet's past with the ecology of this country's future. Carol Haggas
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 330 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton; 1 edition (June 19, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393058425
• ISBN-13: 978-0393058420
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.8 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,099,594 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #75 in Books > Science & Math > Nature & Ecology > Water Supply & Land Use

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Water on the High Plains, September 5, 2006

By 

Jon Thomas - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Ogallala Blue: Water and Life on the High Plains (Hardcover)

I spent my summers in the 1950's as a child on my grandmother's farm in western Kansas. I was always fascinated by the abundant water flowing out of the Caterpillar irrigation pump. It was frigidly cold on a west Kansas 100 degree day. My uncles would put a watermelon in a burlap bag and suspend it under the discharge water from the pump. The water could not have been much more than 60 degrees--or so it seemed. They used the old style irrigation method of that era: unlined ditches and irrigation tubes (first rubber, later aluminum). My older brother and I used to float down those ditches in inner tubes. So, I'm a little sentimental about the Ogallala.

Still, beyond the sentimentality, the story of the Ogallala is a fascinating one. So much water, so many square miles of the high plains. It's somewhat a sad story because of so much depletion of the aquifer. But it's actually a lot more upbeat than I anticipated because of the awareness of most of the people involved in overseeing and using the Ogallala and the regulatory authorities. It seems like the great majority of people in the region know that conservation is the name of the game--while still utilizing the resource in an intelligent manner.

There are exceptions, of course. The state of Texas with it's water law of he who has the biggest pump wins. In this day and age, I don't know why that doesn't surprise me. Oklahoma also sounds to be a little unsound on conservation with its water law, as well.

Overall, the author has done a fine job of telling a story of geology, people, conservation, and irrigation technology blended together. I found it very informative and I learned a number of things about which I was totally unaware. I plan on giving the book to my mother for her 80th birthday.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ogallala Blue: the future of agriculture in the High Plains, November 5, 2007

By 

Langiller (White Salmon, WA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ogallala Blue: Water and Life on the Great Plains (Paperback)

William Ashworth's Ogallala Blue is a great story expertly told. The author lays out the agricultural and political aspects of groundwater use in the High Plains. Drawing on the personalities and perspectives of those managing and studying the aquifer, his style is both relaxed and information dense. The reader is left wondering if our political and legal institutions can respond in time to prevent exhaustion of the aquifer and a forced return to dry-land farming in the High Plains.

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Please don't pump the Sandhills dry!!!, June 8, 2007

By 

Mark Meyer (Buffalo, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ogallala Blue: Water and Life on the High Plains (Hardcover)

I was born in Valentine, Nebraska but I had only the vaguest knowledge of the Ogallala Aquifer that was underfoot. The events of Ancient Rome or Middle Earth of Tolkien (which never did exist, of course) were of greater reality to me than the buffalo and loons and prairie dogs that were around me all the time. Now that I am half a century old, I cry over the despoilation of that beautiful land and all of North America.

Mr. Ashworth's book was really excellent! I found it exciting and informative, packed with numbers at times, and at other times full of drama. I think he captured most of the political and economic issues very well, and did a really excellent job of introducing us to the scientific issues.

It is very hard to disentangle a review like this from the issue involved. The book is great, no doubt about it, but the issue is so gripping and heart-wrenching.

My grandfather was a dryland cattle rancher in Cherry County from about 1915 until the 1960s. What would he think now? I remember the old wooden windmill on his ranch, pumping water into the round corrugated metal tank. I have so many fond memories of the sandhills -- looking for arrowheads in blowouts (mentioned in the book) with my dad as a kid... watching for trains, picking up garter snakes, seeing a "plague of frogs" after a summer rain (I kid you not!!! I drove over Highway 20 once evening in to Valentine, right over thousands of frogs that swarmed everywhere, including the highway. I didn't know what to do! I slowed down but that made the sounds all the more horrible. What terrible karma have I accumulated for myself on that fateful June evening so many years ago?)

I think it is funny that today we spend extra money for chickens and cattle that are organic and free-range. That was all they were for years and years!!! All my grandfather's cattle were free-range! Truly. They were shot and slaughtered, true, but up to that point they had a good life on the prairie.

My experience is mostly Nebraska, though I have done a lot of driving through eastern Colorado, and I have toured South Dakota, esp. the badlands. But the Ogallala Aquifer is home to me... and water, well, how you can say that water isn't home?

Thank you, Mr. Ashworth! I hope that the future works out better than the past! I truly do!

(PS I remember thinking center pivots in the Sandhills were a HUGE mistake in the 1980s! And I've done enough farmwork that I feel I can criticize!)