Water, water

Everywhere but where it’s most needed

IT MAY surprise folks after this spring’s torrential rains soaked famously water-rich Arkansas, but the latest report from this state’s Natural Resources Commission warns that Arkies’ prodigious use of water, especially for farming, can’t be sustained over the long run because the water level in this state’s underground aquifers is dropping. These life-giving streams go all the way from Ashley County in southeast Arkansas to Clay County in the state’s northeast, like vast pools of water that can be tapped when the state is threatened by an approaching drought—even if those of us above ground may not be aware of it.

According to the U.S. Geological Survey, which based its report on information collected in 2010, Arkansas ranks second in the country when it comes to dependence on groundwater—behind California and in front of Texas—for this small but thirsty state accounted for a tenth of all the groundwater used in the whole country, slurping up 7.8 billion gallons of the precious fluid a day.

“I think we should be concerned about it,” says Mike Daniels of the Cooperative Extension Service of the University of Arkansas, and he’s got a lot to be concerned about these days. “If we deplete that aquifer,” he warns, “what are we going to do?” Still, he’s hopeful, because the state’s farmers seem to realize the stake they have in saving this state’s water.

Edward Swaim, who manages matters aquatic at the state’s Natural Resources Commission, notes that consumers may not be aware of any problems with the state’s water supply today, but they could grow more sensitive over the next five or 10 years as the state’s wells dry up. Which might lead them not just to dig deeper wells but build reservoirs or adopt other water-saving methods. “I’m worried about the water,” he says, “because we know that we use more than nature can recharge, but we innovate pretty quickly. And where you have people who experience a problem, they have a lot of solutions available to them, and then they come up with more as they go.” Which may explain why Arkansas hasn’t experienced another disaster like the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. Adversity can be the mother of invention.

But what happens if the state and its farmers fail to plan ahead by adopting the latest in water-conservation techniques? Where persuasion fails, compulsion may be the alternative. Or as the report Mr. Swaim’s team put together concludes: “If conservation and the development of excess surface water are not successfully implemented in the impaired areas in the future, the State will have to consider regulatory alternatives to preserve the aquifers at a sustainable level.” For the water-rich years of the recent past may be over and the water-scarce years looming ahead.

Still, there are ways farmers and ranchers may be able to work together to avert a water crisis through programs that stress conservation and education. The first step may be to designate what are called Arkansas Critical Groundwater Areas, which include eight counties and parts of 11 others in the developing drought belt in southern and eastern Arkansas, where forward-looking folks are already providing an example of how to plan ahead.

For example: In some counties in southern Arkansas, the water level in wells has increased over the years because the industries in those counties— Union, Calhoun, Columbia and Ouachita—are using water from the Ouachita River instead of drawing it from the nearest aquifer. Why not do much the same where irrigation projects along Bayou Meto and the Grand Prairie are concerned?

IT’S CALLED the Tragedy of the Commons. It’s an economic theory the Brits thought up way back when. The “commons” would be the common grazing land that every farmer used. If each farmer acted independently based on his own self-interest and not the greater good, and over-grazed the land for his sheep and cattle, then soon the pastures wouldn’t be available for anybody to use. That’s the tragedy part.

It’s the same with water, or any other natural resource that is limited in supply. That is, all of them.

Ben Franklin could have been thinking of Arkansas when he wrote: “When the well’s dry, we know the worth of water.” It’s priceless, and it’s time all of us began treating it as such.