Headline, October 07 2023/ AMERICA'S : ''' '' WATER CRISES WATCH '' '''

AMERICA'S : 

''' '' WATER CRISES WATCH '' '''

AMERICA'S WATER CRISIS : WELLS ARE GOING DRY. And draining of aquifers places society and country's status as food superpower in peril.

GLOBAL WARMING HAS FOCUSED CONCERN on land and sky, as soaring temperatures have intensified hurricanes, droughts and wildfires. But another climate crisis is unfolding, underfoot and out of view.

Many of the aquifers that supply 90 percent of America's water systems, and which have transformed vast stretches of country into some of the world's most beautiful farmland, are being severely depleted. These declines are threatening irreversible harm to the American economy and society as a whole.

The New York Times conducted one of the most comprehensive examinations of groundwater depletion nation wide and found that America's life giving resource is being exhausted in much of the country.

Huge industrial farms and sprawling cities are draining aquifers that could take centuries or millenniums to replenish themselves, if they recover at all. States and communities are already paying the price.

GROUNDWATER loss is hurting breadbaskets like Kansas, where the major aquifer beneath 2.6 million acres, or 11,000 square kilometers, of land can no longer support industrial scale agriculture.

'' Corn yields have plummeted, If that decline spreads, it could threaten America's status as a food superpower.''

Fifteen hundred miles to the east, in New York State, overpumping is threatening drinking water wells on Long Island, birthplace of the modern American suburb and home to working class towns, as well as to the Hamptons, with their beachfront mansions.

Around Phoenix, one of America's fastest growing cities, the state has said there's not enough groundwater in parts of the country to build new houses that rely on aquifers.

In parts of Utah, California and Texas, so much water is being pumped from the ground that it is causing roads to buckle, foundations to crack and fissures to open in the earth. And around the country rivers that relied on groundwater have become streams or trickles or memories.

'' There is no way to get that back,'' Don Cline, the  associate director for water resources at the United States Geological Survey,  said of disappearing groundwater. '' There's almost no way to convey how important it is.''

This analysis is based on tens of thousands of groundwater monitoring wells that dot the nation. The Times collected data for all these wells,  which are widely scattered and often poorly tracked, from dozens of federal, state and local jurisdictions.

That database reveals the scope of the crisis in many ways. Every year since 1940, for example, more wells have had falling water levels.

One of the biggest obstacles to a solution is that the depletion of this unseen yet essential natural resource is barely regulated. The federal government plays almost no rule, and individual states have implemented a dizzying array of often weak rules.

The problem is also relatively unexamined at the national scale. Hydrologists and other researchers typically focus on single aquifers or regional changes.

All of this enables and reinforce practices that have drained aquifers, such as growing water-intensive crops such as alfalfa or cotton in dry areas and overreliance on groundwater in fast-growing urban areas.

OKLAHOMA is working to determine how much water remains in its aquifers, information that state lawmakers could use to set limits on pumping.

But Christopher Neel, the head of water rights for the Oklahoma Water Resource Board, said people might not necessarily welcome the government's telling them that their land is running out of groundwater.

The Publishing continues. The World Students Society thanks authors Mira Rojanasakul, Christopher Flavelle, Blacki Migliozzi and Eli Murray.

With respectful dedication to the Leaders, Students, Professors and Teachers of America and then the world. See Ya all prepare for Great Global Elections on The World Students Society : wssciw.blogspot.com and Twitter X !E-WOW! The Ecosystem 2011 :

Good Night and God Bless

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless