water out of the Ogallala Aquifer to grow thirsty crops like alfalfa and corn is not a sustainable solution because the Aquifer will soon be gone, and it will take 6,000 years to replenish that ancient water. 

Thousands of acres of irrigation-dependent alfalfa are grown every summer near dehydrators in Larned, Kansas, and Wray, Colorado. Most of the alfalfa is grown with pesticides and is used for animal feed. The same dehydrators that dry the pesticide-treated alfalfa also dry certified organic wheat grass and barley grass. These “organic” products are then sold in the natural food market and compete with Pines International’s certified organic products, which are grown in wetter, appropriate regions that do not require irrigation. 

Even worse, the corn that is grown in Central and Western Kansas is an even more thirsty crop than alfalfa. Combined with the alfalfa, these agricultural practices are drawing down the Aquifer many feet each year. Even more troubling is that almost all the corn is genetically modified to tolerate unprecedented levels of herbicides and is also genetically modified to make its own pesticide that kills bugs that eat it and birds that eat the bugs. 

Some of GMO corn goes into the human food supply. The rest is used for animal feed or to make ethanol. Ethanol from corn requires more energy to grow and distill than it provides in energy for vehicles. Worse, it is one of the main reasons the aquifer is going dry so quickly. We are basically using up our the largest ancient water resource in North America to grow “gasoline!”

The only reason corn is grown and used to make ethanol is because of government subsidies that encourage agribusiness farmers to grow it, wasting all that precious, ancient aquifer water in the process, as well as wasting ancient fossil fuel on farm equipment, processing and shipping. 

What little water is left in the Ogallala is being contaminated by the herbicides and pesticides used by so-called, family farms. The term “family farm” can be misleading. For example, the alfalfa dehydrator in Larned, Kansas, is certainly owned by one family, but that family operates two large agribusiness facilities with more than 60 employees necessary to grow their main product, chemically-grown alfalfa for the mechanized meat industry! This is not what most people think of when they hear the term, “family farm.” 

The Aquifer in these areas has dropped more than 200 feet in the last several decades, and with the drought, it is dropping at an even more alarming rate. Moreover, according to a study recently published in Mother Jones Magazine, 75% of the wells that draw water from the aquifer now test positive for the herbicide atrazine and other farm chemicals. 

The Ogallala Aquifer will soon be gone. Even sooner, it will be so contaminated that it will be unfit for consumption by any animal, including humans. If this drought goes on for ten years like the last one, the dust bowl will return because there will be no water left to waste on growing water-intensive GMO crops like corn and alfalfa. 

If the farming practices could be changed to produce crops that would survive on drip irrigation, the aquifer could be saved and a new dust bowl could be prevented indefinitely. Unfortunately elected officials in the States that use the aquifer are looking only at the short-term profits for agribusiness. 

As a result of the same kind of shortsighted mindset that caused the last dust bowl, the Ogallala Aquifer will soon go dry, and all the land below those irrigation circles will be left to blow in the wind once again.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mohammed-salarbux/ogallala-aquife_b_2215758.html