Hello Mr. Rawles,
I am a great fan of your work and I eagerly anticipate the release of your new novel. I live in rural Northeastern Colorado, where both sides of my family settled in the 1870s. The mid-sized ranch, 1,900 acres, that I live on has been owned by my family for 104 years. I raise cattle, goats, horses and hay along with my dad, my wife and kids. I also have a “government job” in local emergency services to help make ends meet.
I read the recent article by Denise Chow of Live Science, titled Water Woes: Vast US Aquifer Is Being Tapped Out about the Ogallala Aquifer and thought you might be interested in it. I can vouch that the water table is indeed dropping, from personal experience. We are on the edge of the Ogallala Aquifer and we have always had an ample supply of water until about five years ago when the wells in our area started going dry. We have a stock well with a windmill on our place, that was originally hand dug by my great-grandfather in the early 1890s, which went dry two years ago. I believe that this problem will help contribute to and be a factor in the coming collapse. There are some center pivot irrigation wells in our area that are no longer being used because they either went dry, or were told to shut down by the state to conserve water. This has reduced the amount of high yield crops being raised because they now have to be dry land farmed and produce lower yields.
Keep up the good work and God Bless, – Michael M.
Letter Re: Declining Aquifers
