In the arid Southwest, battles are brewing over the waters of the Colorado River. Already, we are draining the Colorado so badly that the wetlands at the river s mouth in Mexico are a sickly remnant of their former splendor. On the Great Plains and elsewhere, we are mining our aquifers there s no other word to describe it. Our largest aquifer, the Ogallala Aquifer, supplies a region from South Dakota to Texas. Since the 1940 s, the Ogallala Aquifer has dropped by more than 10 feet, with some areas of Texas losing nearly 100 feet.
Aquifers can take thousands of years to recharge.
For all practical purposes, once they re gone, that s it. You might ask why a Forest Service Chief should care so much about water. Water and soil are the primary natural resources we need to live to meet our most basic needs. Water is tied to soil through watersheds. A watershed is all the land drained by a single network of streams and lakes.