Fun story about the Ogalalla Aquifer, and how it’s going dry and taking Americas food production capacity with it:

The Last Drop: America’s Breadbasket Faces Dire Water Crisis

In short, for many decades farmers and others living in what used to be called the Great American Desert have been pumping ancient subsurface water to irrigate crops and water cities and such. And since the aquifer is to a large degree a fixed volume of water with few sources, it’s starting to go dry. The responses have been:

1) Switch to crops and farming techniques that require less water

2) La-la-la-la-I-can’t-hear-you-la-la-la….

It seems another option should be available, though. My favorite idea… terraforming!

OK, here’s the Ogalalla Aquifer:

I used this particular map for two reasons:

1) it’s one of the few that, on a quick GIS, shows the Ogalalla Aquifer compared to a good chunk of the CONUS

2) it shows it with the planned Keystone pipeline.

Why are these two important? Because here’s my plan. Refill the aquifer.

The norther part of the aquifer is only the width of Iowa from the Mississippi River. In recent years, there have been droughts that have lowered the level of the river to dangerous levels, choking off barge traffic. But then, there have also been times when that river has slopped over its banks something fierce. Well… rather than just letting the place flood, build a series of pipelines stretching from flood-stage Mississippi River western bank locations in Iowa and Missouri all the way west to boreholes in Nebraska and Kansas. Attach massive pumps to them, powered by new nuclear reactors. During floods, the reactors spool up, powering the pumps and using the floodwater for cooling; billions of gallons are drained from the river and passed west to refill the aquifer. During non-flood times, the pumps are shut down and the reactors go to “standard” power levels.

Sure, high pressure pipes ten feet in diameter stretching 400 or so miles would be an engineering feat. But again, note the Keystone pipeline: not as wide, but certainly far longer. The pipes could be either above or below ground, depending on the area; for below ground pipes, much digging would be needed. And here’s where the effort might actually pay for itself: restart something like the Depress-era Works Progress Administration. Take people currently drawing food stamps from around the country, bus them to Nebraska and Kansas, put shovels in their hands and away you go! Work gets done, unemployed get jobs and pay, the environment and agriculture and national security all benefit.