Boo fucking hoo for High Plains Tex-ass farmers

From what I know, they probably overdraw the Ogallala Aquifer more than any other state that's above it, though New Mexico's could be right up there with them. In both states, anyway, a fair amount of it is for the same demented reason as in places like Southern California with Lower Colorado River Water — alfalfa for dairy farming. (And, if not that, some of the milo on the Texas side of the line also goes to dairy farming.)

And now they're crying about how it's being depleted so rapidly, without talking too much about how they're a large part of the problem, compounded by higher evaporation from irrigation in warmer Texas vs Kansas or Nebraska, and compounded further by the aquifer kind of tilting downhill toward the south. (On the New Mexico side of the line, wells into the Ogallala were starting to draw sand 25 years ago in spots.)

And, this is only going to get worse due to climate change, which most farmers don't want to discuss, although admitting it in the background. (Even the Noble Research Institute prefers euphemism, such as "climate variability.")

Per a PBS Frontline episode years ago about use of Roundup vs crop rotation? Many farmers, mythos aside about their yeomanship or anything else, have gotten lazy on such things. One part of me doesn't totally blame them, as they continue to face Ag Secretary Earl Butz's now 60-year-old dictum of "get big or get out." But, even with that, I still see laziness.