01
High Plains
Water that fell before anybody farmed it.
01
High Plains · the flagship piece
The water under Kansas fell as rain before anybody farmed it.
Much of the High Plains aquifer holds water recharged during and since the last glaciation, which is why drawing it down is not a cycle but a subtraction.
A quarter-section under one pivot. Recharge across most of the aquifer runs to a fraction of an inch a year; irrigation takes feet.
Four ways the water runs out
The one thing to read
The Colorado, divided in a wet decade
The allocation was written when the river was running unusually high, and every argument since has been about arithmetic done at the wrong moment.
Upper BasinColorado, Utah, Wyoming, New Mexico · compact of 1922
7.5
Lower BasinArizona, Nevada, California · compact of 1922
7.5
MexicoWater treaty of 1944
1.5
Total on paperCompact and treaty combined
16.4
Long-run average flow at Lee FerryTree-ring reconstruction
13–14
Million acre-feet a year · bars to scale against the total on paper · every claimant on paper
Seven places this reporting keeps returning to
Aquifer states, the lower Colorado, and the sinking cities
The aquifer states, the lower Colorado and the cities measurably subsiding. Every pin is a page.
Every acre-foot on the lower river has a name against it, and the names add up to more than the river.
