Why America’s Groundwater Is Disappearing | WSJ

The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal
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Published 2024-05-09
Unchecked groundwater use is draining aquifers across the U.S., threatening drinking water supplies and the nation’s status as a food superpower. For example, the Ogallala Aquifer beneath the Great Plains supports about 30% of all U.S. crop and animal production, but in 2022, parts of the water table reached their lowest levels since NASA started measuring two decades ago.

WSJ explains why this crisis is posing an “existential threat” to many communities and looks at how the critical natural resources could be saved.

Chapters:
0:00 Groundwater disappearing
0:33 Importance of groundwater in Kansas
2:48 How communities are adapting
4:11 Systemic issues leading to depletion
5:03 Depletion across the country
5:39 What’s next?

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All Comments (21)
  • @Flipflop437
    I’m confident that our great nation will recognize the urgency of the groundwater situation, and proceed to do nothing.
  • @Me97202
    Meanwhile, huge corporations, like Coke, use as much groundwater as they want for free.
  • @Someone-cd7yi
    “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.”
  • @jm9371
    When ground water is gone, its GONE! It takes lifetimes to replenish, especially if the aquifer subsides.
  • @ronkirk5099
    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.
  • @briceking669
    There are also foreign nations buying farm land, growing water intensive crops and shipping them overseas.
  • @jess_o
    We MUST stop subsidizing unsustainable products! I am looking at you, Corn, Ethanol
  • @russcrawford3310
    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 ...
  • @Kelfuma
    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?
  • @jaehoony88
    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.
  • @freeheeler09
    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.
  • @jeriwhite1290
    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.