Any water issues in the Sandhills? (Omaha, Alliance: houses, live, restaurant)

[CA central coast]

Is there just an unending supply of water in the ground. Is it good, clean tasting? Is it soft?

[Sandhills Guru]

Originally Posted by CA central coast

Is there just an unending supply of water in the ground. Is it good, clean tasting? Is it soft?

Never ending supply of water?? Sandhills ground water supplies are vast, of high quality, & are very pleasant for drinking in most areas to my knowledge. I know there is a water bottling plant in Long Pine for sure and a couple others throughout the sandhills to my knowledge.

We did not have a water softner on the ranch and did not notice the hard water deposits on fixtures like we do in our other home, which is outside the sandhills area.

[Dave1215]

People that go there and drink the water are amazed... I've heard it described as sweet..

As a city kid growing up I always loved to go see the Sandhill relatives - there was something different with the water.

[mattpoulsen]

Dave,

Absolutely agree. I grew up in the Sandhills and, as a kid, anytime i visited the city relatives I had the opposite experience as you. I always remember how nasty I thought the water was in the different cities I visited. Obviously, after acclimating its not a big deal, but there is a very noticeable difference between say water in Omaha and water from the Sandhills.

[itsMeFred]

Definitely not unending though! That's a big part of the complaint against groundwater irrigators afterall...

[GraniteStater]

^
That is true. I have studied the Ogallala Aquifer in depth for a lengthy period of time. The greatest total falls in feet have been recorded at the southern extent of the aquifer in the Texas and Oklahoma panhandle area as well as southwest Kansas. The aquifer depth is deeper overall in Nebraska compared to other parts of the aquifer. However, water conservation is always a top priority in the Great Plains and must be taken very seriously. Advances in irrigation types are excellent ways to conserve the aquifer for future generations to manage.

[itsMeFred]

The greatest total falls in feet have been recorded at the southern extent of the aquifer in the Texas and Oklahoma panhandle area as well as southwest Kansas.

Very true. But the affected area is spreading northward. Very few areas of the aquifer have seen rises, but most have seen drops. Some, like my area, or up by Alliance, have seen very significant declines...

[SCGranny]

I hate water.
I could never drink it straight from any tap or well. Fortunately, I was raised as a Southerner, so coffee and sweet tea - that boiled the water and added flavor to it - were my options. But I have traveled extensively and lived all over the US, and never once have I been able to drink tap or well water without feeling sick. Never once have I poured a glass of tap or well water without seeing the 'things' floating in it. In some places a film collects on the glass when water is allowed to sit in it, or sediment collects at the bottom. Somethimes it is the smell that gets to me, sometimes the color - cloudy or orangish or brownish or even bluish (bleach).

Never, that is, until last year.

I sat down at the Cedar Canyon restaurant with my daughter and the RE agent for supper. They brought water to the table. I held up the glass. Nothing. No color. No smell. No 'floaters'. Just water. I tasted it and was hooked immediately. THIS was WATER! Clear and pure and, yes, even sweet. Turns out the aquifer here runs through miles and miles of sand, which purifies it. And they don't have to add anything to it - no bleach, no fluorides, nothing. It is what it is, and what water was meant to be. My plants love it. I drink it all of the time now. People think I'm a little bit crazy because I'll order - water. But that's ok - it is the best thing I have ever tasted.

No new applications for wells into the aquifer are being permitted in our county at this time, and water use by ranchers and farmers - particularly from the Niobrara River - are monitored. They have closed off access to the aquifer; those that don't have it now can't get it. And that is a good thing - it preserves the water and it limits hyperactive development.

[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...

[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...

It really angers me when we have profligate water users who just drill new wells. Permits should be restricted based on GIS modeling that can display aquifer depth in a particular area. The problem is that you must RESPECT the land and realize Midwest style crops should not be grown in the semi-arid plains. I understand the economic implications for farmers, but water mining is not a sustainable practice, and dramatic aquifer drops prove it. In the southern Plains where you have huge feedlots, slaughterhouses, processing plants, etc tremendous amounts of water are used for growing corn to force feed cattle. Using GIS technology, we have accurate depicitions displaying the largest falls in total in feet in the underground aquifer are where feedlots and large-scale commercial agriculture is present. Examples include: Finney and Ford counties in KS. If you Google Earth these areas you will notice an extremely high concentration of center pivot irrigators.
- Dryland Agriculture book takes a world view