{"id":1582,"date":"2014-08-12T12:45:24","date_gmt":"2014-08-12T18:45:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ahwilderness.com\/?p=1582"},"modified":"2014-08-12T12:45:24","modified_gmt":"2014-08-12T18:45:24","slug":"aquifer-feeding-texas-high-plains-rapidly-shrinks-albuquerque-journal-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.ahwilderness.com\/?p=1582","title":{"rendered":"Aquifer feeding Texas High Plains rapidly shrinks | Albuquerque Journal News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.abqjournal.com\/444201\/abqnewsseeker\/aquifer-feeding-texas-high-plains-rapidly-shrinks.html\">Aquifer feeding Texas High Plains rapidly shrinks | Albuquerque Journal News<\/a> <\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>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.  <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/bit.ly\/1ykkge6\">Records examined by the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal<\/a> 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 \u00e2\u20ac\u201d Parmer and Castro \u00e2\u20ac\u201d have plunged more than double that amount \u00e2\u20ac\u201d 100 feet.  <\/p>\n<p>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 \u00e2\u20ac\u201d 325,853 gallons.  <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153When anybody tells me it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s going to last for 50 years, I just laugh,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Lucia Barbato, associate director at the Center for Geospatial Technology at Texas Tech University, told the newspaper in a story published Sunday.  <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153How long the aquifer lasts depends on where you are.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d  <\/p>\n<p>The Texas Tech center estimates four counties have less than 15 years before groundwater is exhausted for irrigation.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.abqjournal.com\/444201\/abqnewsseeker\/aquifer-feeding-texas-high-plains-rapidly-shrinks.html\">Aquifer feeding Texas High Plains rapidly shrinks | Albuquerque Journal News<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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 &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ahwilderness.com\/?p=1582\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Aquifer feeding Texas High Plains rapidly shrinks | Albuquerque Journal News<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-drought","category-wildlands"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ahwilderness.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ahwilderness.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ahwilderness.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ahwilderness.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ahwilderness.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1582"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.ahwilderness.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1582\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ahwilderness.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ahwilderness.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ahwilderness.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}