Ogallala Aquifer | What Happens When the Water Runs Out, National Geographic Magazine: Bedsprings Corral in New Mexico
Near Elida New Mexico – This is a bedsprings corral for a few milk cows during hard times on the high planes before the water mining began. Now that the water mining is ending the wind machines are taking over the landscape.
In a county once littered with post offices, there are now only 5 left. Durward Dixon, Mayor of Elida, Pop 200, blames the dearth of water. When they lay internet cables in Elida and break the water line, the mayor and the judge have to run out to the edge of town to turn off the water supply and then help fix the broken main. On the plains around them are signs of hard times in the 40’s and 50’s like the dairy that used old mattress springs as a containment area for their handful of milk cows. The signs of the future for this place loom over those mattresses – huge farms of wind machines. Farmers supplement their income now with wind leases and will be more dependent on them after the water runs out. There are huge wind machine factories all over this area… one of the biggest ones is just outside Garden City KS.
I interviewed a Research Agronomist for the USDA who says it is too late to save farming on the high plains.