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The Ballad of the Ogallalah Aquifer
by Jeff "Dr. Chordate" Moran, copyright 1993
I lie beneath the soil of the dusty western plains
Filled with the water of ten thousand years of rains.
From northern Nebraska to Texas in the south,
I can survive a hundred years of drought.
Folks drink from me in Kansas and in Oklahoma, too;
I water yards and help grow wheat and meat for you.
And I hold the plains together like a glue.
The Ogallalah Aquifer's the name by which I'm known,
A giant sponge that's underneath the soil.
I feed the streams and the springs of the plains,
And I'm more valuable than all the world's oil.
The pioneers said, "For growing food, this land's unfit."
But farmers came, and they raise quite a bit.
Chorus:
Now people say, "To make the land produce more crops,
We must dig deep wells and irrigate."
And so they make more holes, and the water gushes forth
The dry prairie soils to innundate.
But sometimes it's hard to understand why
To raise another herd of steers, they're pumping me dry;
To grow another field of wheat, they're pumping me dry;
To plant another row of corn, they're pumping me dry.
And someday all my water will be gone, and I'll die,
'Cause to feed another hungry child, they're pumping me dry.
An aquifer is any space that lies within the ground
In which recoverable water can be found.
Gravel from the Rockies washed down by many storms
Over millions of years is how I began to form.
Covered up with sediments and dirt upon the top
Through which water filters slowly drop by drop.
'Til it reaches my quadrillion gallon lake.
In tune with the hydrologic cycles of the earth,
For thousands of years I've been intact,
Taking on water at the rate that it is lost.
But now they want my water to extract
For the two hundred seventy-five gallons that it takes
To produce each pound of T-bone steak.
Chorus:
Now people say, "To make the land produce more crops,
We must dig deep wells and irrigate."
And so they make more holes, and the water gushes forth
The dry prairie soils to innundate.
But sometimes it's hard to understand why
To raise another herd of steers, they're pumping me dry;
To grow another field of wheat, they're pumping me dry;
To plant another row of corn, they're pumping me dry.
And someday all my water will be gone, and
die,
'Cause to feed another hungry child, they're pumping me dry.
-Jeff "Dr. Chordate" Moran