High Noon At The Ogallala Aquifer

An audacious plan to suck out groundwater from under rural Texas and sell it to large distant cities has ignited water wars in the state.

1 minute read

February 8, 2001, 8:00 AM PST

By Abhijeet Chavan @http://twitter.com/legalaidtech

"As Texas' metropolises grow, the search for municipal water has become expensive and intense. Pickens hopes to capitalize on this by tapping the groundwater of four Panhandle counties and sending it by pipeline hundreds of miles to one of three Texas cities: El Paso, San Antonio or Dallas-Fort Worth...The Ogallala isn't like rivers, lakes or even most other aquifers: It has no source of replenishment... Pickens is proposing to expand its use, so far chiefly agricultural, to include supplying large, distant cities...After all, Pickens' plan comes ith a range of risks: It could cause saltwater intrusion within the aquifer, and it could reduce the pumping effectiveness of existing wells. A remote chance exists that it could cause land subsidence, as has happened around Houston after groundwater overpumping. Alas, one man's surplus is another's unsustainable resource."

Thanks to Abhijeet Chavan

Read the full story: High noon at the Ogallala aquifer

Monday, February 5, 2001 in Salon

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