Why America’s Groundwater Is Disappearing | WSJ 

The science behind why the world is getting wetter: on.wsj.com/3ygp7so

I’m confident that our great nation will recognize the urgency of the groundwater situation, and proceed to do nothing.

Stop using corn as fuel.

Meanwhile, huge corporations, like Coke, use as much groundwater as they want for free.

“Only when the last tree has died and the last river been poisoned and the last fish been caught will we realize we cannot eat money.”

Maybe, stop corn subsidies.

There are also foreign nations buying farm land, growing water intensive crops and shipping them overseas.

The funniest part is how much food the US wastes

When groundwater aquifers are pumped down the water bearing strata can compress so that it loses its ability to hold water even if water use is reduced below the recharge rate. Once the aquifer is wrecked, it's wrecked for good. Most of this water is actually fossil water anyway that took thousands of years to accumulate and recharge rates are extremely slow. It doesn't make much sense to grow water intensive crops like cotton and alfalfa in the desert anyway and we sure shouldn't be exporting alfalfa to Saudia Arabia.

When ground water is gone, its GONE! It takes lifetimes to replenish, especially if the aquifer subsides.

People don't understand the situation at all. They see farmers using too much water, and they look no farther. History tells us that prior to the "invasion" by Europeans, America was home to hundreds of millions of beavers. They inhabited rivers, creeks, and streams across the country, even in areas that are deserts today. Roughly ten percent of north America was covered by beaver-created wetlands. Beavers were hunted almost to extinction, and when they were gone, the wetlands disappeared. So did billions of birds, fish, and other wildlife that depended upon the wetlands. It was only then that agriculture stripped the land and began depleting the already disappearing groundwater. Now, with modern agriculture sucking all the water out of the ground, and no beavers to help to replenish that groundwater, the earth is drying up and will in time turn to desert. Why is it so hard for people to understand that America needs to harvest water? We need to reestablish wetlands. Property owners should be paid for harvesting water and for creating wetlands on their land. It isn't rocket science. It is just plain old common sense, but people don't see it. It is possible to restore groundwater, and it is possible to restore badly degraded lands. The only other option is to continue degrading the land and using all the water until it is gone. Sadly, America will likely take the easy route to destruction. We rarely do the right thing anymore because that requires effort and dedication.

The US government subsidizes a lot of these farmers and their agricultural products. Doesn’t that distort the market and encourage more inefficient water use?

We MUST stop subsidizing unsustainable products! I am looking at you, Corn, Ethanol

Because most of our crops aren't food for people.

So industry farming companies been abusing underground water in this country like it's unlimited resource, when in fact it is a very real limited resource. This can't continue.

I just got back from Phoenix after having worked in Arizona ten years ago. Phoenix is rapidly spreading like a malignant cancer across the desert. Even after decades of warnings about looming water shortages, and after year after year of rising temperatures, you drive through mile after mile after mile of new strip malls and low density housing. Visiting Phoenix is like watching the first twenty minutes of a post apocalyptic horror film. You know the end is coming soon soon and you know that it’ll be brutal, and you just can’t bring yourself to look away.

Nothing will be done until it is too late..

farming is not the problem, industry farming is

Maybe we need to rethink growing corn to raise cows.

We farm on the southern Texas Panhandle. Our part of the aquifer is basically pumped dry. It’s sad our entire economy is dependent on it.

We’re creating another dust bowl

Invisible? ... folks must be blind ... the water crisis has been plain and obvious for decades ... we've moved to the city and forgot how food grows ...

This land used to be farmed for winter wheat, which it produced well, profitably, and without irrigation. A false economy driven by free groundwater and cheap capital allowed them to develop it well beyond its true ecological niche. I call that bad management; if we have a capitalism that can make you rich, we need one that can bankrupt you as well. Price the groundwater as a limited public resource open to minimum bid and competitive pressure.

California has taken action on aquifer conservation and management but no one is happy about it, especially farmers. Really tough decision making.

It's a good thing the EPA allowed fracking fluid to be pumped into some of our underground aquifers. God forbid we might try to use that water in the future. This way we don't have to worry about it!

The world needs to use drip irrigation, instead of spraying.

Don't use ethanol as a Fuel.

Regenerative agriculture replenishes aquifers. People are practicing it across Africa to stop the Sahara desert from spreading into the Sahel.

It’s way past due to limit development around Phoenix, way too many people for the resources there

Unspoken: High water use crops grown for export. Gulf nations own chunks of Arizona ag lands.

If there was ever an incentive for practicing rainwater catchment, it’s this. And yet some states in their own moral insanity, outlaw that practice or highly regulate it.

Michael Burry's (The Big Short) next investment was Water. Worth remembering

Not to mention the pfas & pfos in many springs & wells. Had a big one in my area shut down because levels got too high & my town's drinking water is undrinkable because of it too. Clean drinking water is becoming scarce.

Fix this for our childrens children, not just ourselves. For the bees, for the birds, for the animals 😢

This can be fixed: - Feed cows naturally, don't use corn or other crops. Let them eat grass. - Stop growing corn to make Ethanol for car fuel - Stop eating so much meat, grow crops that you can eat without going the extra step (plant -> feeds human. Not: plant -> feeds animal -> feeds human) - Stop using groundwater, use rainwater or rivers instead - Build new canals to get water from rivers to your farms

Nestle, coke, Pepsi, farming in the deserts. It’s almost like using all of the groundwater in unsustainable ways was a terrible decision to began with.

We started having water shortage issues about the same time Americans started accepting buying bottled water...coincidence maybe🤔?

Plant native trees to retain water. It also might bring clouds of rain with enough evaporation.🌧️

In the United States there is insufficient recognition of “us” or “community” and too much emphasis on “me”. The pendulum can swing the other way, but on this issue a broad community approach is needed. (Good luck with that.)

TSMC is building semiconductor foundry in Arizona. A process that requires millions of gallons of water per day.

A lot of the problem is that that 50% of ground water is used in oil drilling and the rest is used to grow alfalfa that is shipped to Saudia Arabia to feed their horses. Then the rest is what the people get to use. Most of the problem is industry use that is being blamed on the dairy and food crop farmers!

Anything but blame FRACKING. 😡

Even India is running out of ground water

In cities in the far east, tube wells were banned. Several years later, old springs started to flow again.

Thank you for sharing it

What’s happening with our planet!! Even in my town all the wells is getting dried out

I grew up on top of the Ogallala in Texas. It looks like Amarillo is going to beef itself to death.

FINALLY! Someone is talking about this

As a farmer the issue isn't possible to be solved without state intervention. Farmers can theoretically grow crops that aren't as much water reliant, but the thing is, there is no one to buy those crops. You need to change the entire industry there. Water rights by themselves are a weird thing, If I own the land, I should own the water below it, but if it is truly a human right and belongs to no one person, then why people need to pay for it? You should pay only for the infrastructure, not the water amount itself.

Stupid greedy developers and politicians.

We should replace all corn farms with almond farms to really speed things up

🔥 🔥 🔥 "this is fine" 🔥 🔥 🔥

I hope america will worry about their water more than worry about middle east countries

So many federal laws , but none to maintain the agricultural heritage of America

so much dusty dirt in this video. Water just evaporates off of exposed dirt and when it rains, there is erosion rather than soaking into the ground. What would it take to cover that with cover crops or mulch?

Rural America resistant to change in defiance to basic logic? Who would have thought

Those stubborn old farmers will change their behavior when all of their wells run dry.

Apparently, these people slept through the 1920's in Oklahoma

I've been thinking about this for years we really need to change our practices. Regenerative agriculture or holistic management for cattle is the answer. Why we are growing corn and alfalfa in these areas is beyond me. We need to be looking to regenerative management before we make a man made dessert. Were in the second dust bowl this one is worse than the 1920's because the soil is dead.

Very interesting. Good vid.

If Americans cut meat consumption in half, many of the water issues would go away as would many billions in health care costs. American diets are a disaster. People do not want to face that until they have a stroke, heart attack, bypass surgery, etc.

Had no idea the US was considered a “food superpower”. I’d never buy food that comes from USA, it’s widely known for low quality

Scary to think we're running out of water 😨

Nobody uses water. We only borrow it.

I'm a Kansas resident.....the ethanol plants are a problem....more corn every year. It won't stop until the water is gone. All on purpose!!!

Normally, I am for free markets solving problems. And perhaps free markets can fix this. But my question is, why not install a network of pipes that connect regions/cities around the USA and send water to places that need it? We have gas pipelines, electric grid, railroads, interstates, telecommunications grids, but no water network. If you have an area that has just been hit by a hurricane or record rainfall, turn on the pumps and send it to a drought stricken area.

Am I looking at the B-roll wrong? Those farmers are irrigating by spraying a constant stream of mist all while there are severe gusts of wind constantly blowing through the flat plain? Why?

The largest user, I fixed my leaky toilet, now stop all those small operators from pumping my water!

There is a very easy solution: accurate price signals. Government created this problem by making artificially cheap water from unsustainable/nonrenewable sources. The solution is to make the water more expensive so that people do not produce consumer products, agriculture, that does not match the environment that it's grown in. Figure out how much water there is coming into a zone on a renewable sustainable basis, then auction off that much water annually. People will start reducing their usage when it starts to get expensive. Then take the revenue from that water auction, and use it for a per-person dividend to offset the more expensive residential water usage that isn't really the problem, other than that people will stop growing grass lawns in the desert when it becomes significantly more expensive to do so. The invisible hand of the free market is amazing when accurate price signals are allowed to work.

The word "crisis" is rarely used for real crisises

This is a state that for 30 years denied global warming and continues industrial monoculture their farms land reducing the quality of the soil and the capacity to retain water. Science already have shown how to do agriculture that allow maintaining land and water resources. In fact some farmers across the USA already do it. What they are waiting for to adapt?

Bottom line that most folks don't want to hear in Ag states- Cattle ranching is an unsustainable enterprise.

Greed destroys everything it finds on its path, including the basic necessities for human survival

Indoor vertical farming methods require 95% less water

The federal government needs to step in and provide everyone a reality check.

The first time I flew across the country I kept seeing all these round circles throughout the Midwest, turns out it's irrigation that runs on a central pivot so the field is watered in a huge circle.

So they're just going to ignore the fact the water is also used to grow food for farm animals that are then slaughter for food, and that water is also used as drinking water for farm animals and used to clean the farm animal after they're slaughter.

I live at the foot of the Rocky Mts. People seem to think we have a limitless amount of water. Not true. Wells are going dry. Creeks and streams are being diverted by ranchers and farmers. THEN that water is being polluted by both industries. Yes, we get snow, but with the growing number of humans, there is not enough water. THE human pop is growing unrestrained by people who think they are above the needs of other lifeforms, we don't have a chance. Greed rules.

Who would have thought that unchecked greed and unregulated water usage would go south on us. And the aquifer goes all the way to Nebraska....literally Ogallala, Nebraska....where it was discovered and hence named after.

This has been a problem for decades, and _now_ the WSJ cares?

The real question is has Kansas planted enough NEW trees since 1950 in their ag fields/pastures ? Trees produce water. I just see large fields with many access roads with no trees or even.

Bottom line: Too many humans.

Interesting video 👍

Let's hope corporate stays out of this and actually allows the farmers and scientist to meet this challenge

Fracking surely didn't help. We're heading for 3C worldwide temp above pre-industrial.

Too many people, same amount of water....

Our resistance to change is the biggest obstacle.

Our wells are drying up in Maryland, tons of rain , just last couple years. Our one grocery store is often sold out of water with empty bottles piled up outside for the 5 gal exchange bottles.

Let the country subside and stupidity and greed win.🤔

Beef is by far the most water consuming agricultural product. It takes about 2000 gallons to get 1 pound of beef. Maybe the massive factory cattle farms in the area should have to pay a higher price for water.

I can't expect this reporter to have knowledge of how a soil full of organic matter will hold water, all the while offering nutrients to plants. Take a look at the color the soil in the video: light brown, dusty soil devoid of organic matter. Why? Synthetic fertilizers, pesticides which kill most soil organisms and the replanting over and over again of crops like corn that strip the nutrients out of the ground. South west Kansas wouldn't have a water problem if farmers were SUPPORTED to build their soils and utilize rotational grazing for their cattle instead of stripping the land by growing corn for cattle. There are thousands of examples around the world where this has been done, if one is interested in learning more.

I remember once there were studies of feeding cattle seaweed... That is plenteous and doesn't affect the agricultural and land use profile like corn does... Subsidize the transport of seaweed?

The United States needs to stop subsidizing when there are opportunities to purchase it cheaper from abroad. cell or rent the land to some green energy guys for wind, turbines, and solar farms instead of making corn into fuel.

Stop animal agriculture now.

How can we get the masses of common people to demand something be done to solve the problem in order to get them to assist with their own depopulation?

This landscape needs trees.

Yeah we're toast.

AZ has a 100 year water plan. New developments will have to supply their own water to get permits. AZ is in good shape.

All that corn for ethanol fuel sure doesn’t help. :/

Easy solution. Build reservoirs to contain all rain water. Don't let a single drop off rain water to flow into the ocean. This should be done a long time ago. About time this is done.