Of whooping cranes and family farms: Another look at the high plains study

Excerpt

CONGRESS commissioned the High Plains study “to assure an adequate supply of food to the nation and to promote the economic vitality of the High Plains region” (see JSWC, November-December 1982, pp. 310–314). Given the declining groundwater levels in the Ogallala Aquifer, the High Plains study was instead a study that ignored fundamental issues in order to serve more immediate, vested interests. These interests are best described by their allegiance to the irrigation imperative.

Beginning with a planning horizon of 43 years (1977–2020), the study engaged in a variety of exercises that accommodate conservation on the premise that the current use of the Ogallala Aquifer for irrigation is a preferred use. Comparing management strategies over a limited period tends to diminish the relative value of strategies that could assure perpetual use of the aquifer, for example, mandatory conservation. At the same time, such an approach masks the disastrous impact of any strategy, voluntary conservation, for example, that permits eventual exhaustion of the aquifer.

The High Plains study validates the assumption that irrigation in the High Plains is a national treasure to be protected at almost any cost. For the time being (over …