“And I will break the pride of your power; and I will make your heaven as iron and your earth as brass: And your strength shall be spent in vain: For your land shall not yield her increase, neither shall the trees of the land yield their fruits.”
– Leviticus, 26: 19, 20
From Dust Bowl country near Lamar, The Denver Post reported: “... a punishing (60 mph) dust storm slammed into the Hixson Farms at full force, trapping (the Hixsons) in their home for 15 hours to kick off Memorial Day weekend.” (It was the worst of seven dust storms that had hit since November.)
“You hear sand and dirt pounding against the window,” said farmer Jillane Hixson. “You know that it’s your crop that’s hitting the windows and blowing away, and it’s not just affecting you, but also everyone else.”
When the storm passed, the Hixsons looked out onto three-foot drifts of dirt covering the landscape. “We were shell-shocked, almost immobilized by depression,” she said. “We were overwhelmed by the huge financial loss and the physical and emotional stress.”
Why bring up this news item from the 1930s? Well, I didn’t. Although the Hixons’ description of the storm matches many of those from the Dust Bowl era almost word for word, it hit them in the spring of 2013.
Concurrent news reports describe the expansion of corn production in the region. Corn, a highly water-intensive crop, has nonetheless become highly profitable – in part because of the federal mandate that ethanol, mostly corn-based, be added to automotive fuel.
In response to these “market-forces” farmers, intent on growing as much corn as possible, have been converting natural, drought-resistant grasslands and acreage formerly used for dry-land crops, such as sugar beets, to corn fields. Amazingly, they also are removing many of the windbreak trees and hedgerows planted in the 1930s to slow dust storms. And they are overdrawing the aquifers of this dry region to meet corn’s intense water demands.
Meanwhile, a recent (U.K.) Guardian story titled “A Texan Tragedy: Ample Oil, No Water,” reports from Barnhart, Texas, that, “Beverly McGuire saw the warning signs before the town well went dry: sand in the toilet bowl, the sputter of air in the tap, a pump working overtime to no effect. But it still did not prepare her for the night last month when she turned on the tap and discovered the tiny town where she had made her home for 35 years was out of water.
“The day that we ran out of water, I turned on my faucet and nothing was there and at that moment I knew the whole of Barnhart was down the tubes,” she said, blinking back tears. “I went: ‘Dear God, help us.’”
McGuire had hooked up to Barnhart’s water supply when her own well went dry shortly after an oil fracking boom began in her area. Fracking uses an enormous amount of water, pollutes it, then discards it into “containment ponds,” which have a propensity to leak. Within two years after the boom began, hundreds of new wells were drilled to supply the insatiable fracking operations – and the whole town went dry.
Water levels in the area’s aquifers have dropped so low that the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality estimates that 30 communities could run out of water by the end of this year. More than 15 million residents statewide are now subject to water rationing.
One resident complained, “I’ve got dead trees in my yard because I haven’t been able to water them. The state is mandating (water conservation), but why? ... Getting one oil well fracked takes more water than the entire town can drink or use in a day.”
And so it goes across the West. Muddy water comes out of taps in Las Vegas hotels. The Colorado River and the cities that depend on it – Las Vegas, Phoenix, San Diego – are drying up. All of California is experiencing severe drought, and Oregon, which normally spends $10 million per year fighting forest fires already has spent $60 million this year. There’s nowhere to run.
Of course, the drought has many causes – it’s not all fracking and corn. Private swimming pools and huge golf courses in Phoenix, fountains in Las Vegas, bottling unhealthy drinks – bottling water – and the effects of climate change all contribute.
But, in each case, we’re doing the opposite of what’s needed – fracking and increasing corn production instead of conserving water and planting trees. We must stop using water like there is no tomorrow – or there won’t be a tomorrow at our ecological house.
Philip S. Wenz, who grew up in Durango and Boulder, now lives in Corvallis, Ore., where he teaches and writes about environmental issues. Reach him via e-mail through his website, www.your-ecological-house.com.
More reading
For a more in-depth look at the drought, I recommend the following articles which provided some of the source material for this column:
Dust storms: “Massive Dust Storms Hit Southeast Colorado, Evoking ‘Dirty Thirties’” www.denverpost.com/news/ci_23420681/massive-dust-storms-hit-southeast-colorado-evoking-dirty#ixzz2W1IWwwxS
Fracking and drought: “A Texan Tragedy: Ample Oil, No Water” www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/aug/11/texas-tragedy-ample-oil-no-water
Las Vegas water shortage and the Colorado River: “Sin City Runs Dry: Drought in the Land of Fountains” http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/08/16/2474451/sin-city-water/
