Any water issues in the Sandhills?

[GraniteStater]

Originally Posted by itsMeFred

On the contrary.
the aquifer and the rivers (except possibly the Niobrara) are already hyperactively developed.
And when a pivot well goes dry, the farmer gets to drill another to replace it.


BTW, when we lived south of Kilgore, right on the Niobrara, my husband helped put in an irrigation pump in the river. Then he chiseled in a section of wheat. Next spring they were going to disk in corn.
He almost cried.
"We've got to get off this place."

He couldn't bear to be part of destroying his beloved Sandhills...

Corn is a much bigger water user than wheat. The farmer probably saw the uptick in corn prices and figured he could make a larger profit over wheat. The irrigation of corn uses incredible amounts of water. I really think the cornbelt should stay in the Midwest, where they don't use irrigation.

[SCGranny]

Originally Posted by itsMeFred

On the contrary.
the aquifer and the rivers (except possibly the Niobrara) are already hyperactively developed.
And when a pivot well goes dry, the farmer gets to drill another to replace it.

Yes but... when I say "hyperactive development", I am referring to the McMansions in their overpopulated developments, with their sprinklers going just to keep their nonnative grass green 24/7, the retirement communities with their swimming pools and huge lawns and nonnative plants. Anywhere there is a "water feature" - an ocean, a lake (manmade or not) or a river, people crowd around it like lemmings. I remember when Effingham county in GA FINALLY passed a restriction on drilling into the Floridian aquifer, after water samples showed that the water had saltwater intrusion from the ocean, where they had pumped the freshwater out of the aquifer so much that the ocean water was literally sucked into it! Now they are severely restricted in their water access, and many proposed developments sit half-built and empty, because local governments promised them water that was not available.

Not dissing your experience AT ALL - that is too much advantage taken, too. I just don't get what people don't get about soil and water usage...

[itsMeFred]

Originally Posted by GraniteStater

Corn is a much bigger water user than wheat. The farmer probably saw the uptick in corn prices and figured he could make a larger profit over wheat. The irrigation of corn uses incredible amounts of water. I really think the cornbelt should stay in the Midwest, where they don't use irrigation.

He's not really a farmer. He's a developer. He's also one that the NRD had to create their limits on the Niobrara for. And yes, I'm well aware of how much water corn takes. In fact, down in this corner of Nebraska, the same developer put in, I kid you not, 130 center-pivot irrigation wells.

Granny, I wish our problem was with people watering the lawns of their McMansions. That is truly inconsequential compared to center pivot irrigation.
The Omaha World-Herald had done a series on this a year or two ago, and if I remember right from one of their pie graphs, irrigation alone accounts for something like 92% of the groundwater used in this state.

[CA central coast]

Hopefully I can visit western/central NE in the near future. All my time out there has been spent in Omaha. Except the time I drove down through Valentine by way of SD. But it got dark by the time I was driving out of Ainsworth. Rest of the way to Omaha was dark, didn't see much. Except a big shamrock in O'Neill. I have to admit, I'm not much of a church goer. Haven't been in 25 yrs. Would that matter to the folks?

[itsMeFred]

no