Aquifer feeding Texas High Plains rapidly shrinks | Albuquerque Journal News
The chief underground water source for irrigating the agriculture-rich Texas High Plains is depleting at a pace that some fear will exhaust it far more quickly than anticipated.
Records examined by the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal show the Ogallala Aquifer has dropped about 325 billion gallons every year for at least the past four decades, meaning the 40-foot decline in the water supply amounts to about a foot each year. But at least two Texas counties west of Lubbock — Parmer and Castro — have plunged more than double that amount — 100 feet.
The aquifer covers parts of eight states from the Dakotas to Texas, holds almost 3 billion acre-feet of water and could run out in 50 years, according to a Kansas study last year. An acre-foot of water is the equivalent of 1 acre of surface area covered by water 1 foot deep — 325,853 gallons.
“When anybody tells me it’s going to last for 50 years, I just laugh,†Lucia Barbato, associate director at the Center for Geospatial Technology at Texas Tech University, told the newspaper in a story published Sunday.
“How long the aquifer lasts depends on where you are.â€
The Texas Tech center estimates four counties have less than 15 years before groundwater is exhausted for irrigation.
Aquifer feeding Texas High Plains rapidly shrinks | Albuquerque Journal News