From: Darryl Maddox (dpmaddox@arn.net)
Date: Sun Nov 09 2003 - 20:21:49 EST
While we have discussed the relationship between declining oil supplies and its relationship to us as Christians, I don't think we have discussed the parallel problem of declining water supplies.
http://www-geology.ucdavis.edu/~GEL115/115CH18miningwater.html is chapter 15 of a set of lecture notes by Dr. Richard Cowen of the Univercity of California at Davis. The course is (and the notes) are on the relationships between natural resources and history. Very good reading for those who are not familiar with those relationships.
Perhaps some of you would like to discuss this topic. Living as I do in the middle of the Texas High Plains which is facing this very problem, but not being a farmer, or a rancher, or a business owner in the area, I don't have much to say except life is going to get tough, some will loose their jobs, some their companies, but hopefully we are past the shooting stage of the 1800's range wars.
A few weeks ago I was with two other geologists and as we drove by miles of land that was once irrigated but is now being dryland farmed or grazed, one of them made the analogy that we were driving over a depleated resevoir except that instead of being an old oil field (all three of us started in the oil business but only one still is and he is, by his on statement "semi-retired" at 53) it is an old water field. Some of you may recognize the name - the Ogallala. It isn't depleated everywhere but those folks had given up trying to irrigate from it and slowly the big ranches are being sold off. I don't know more than a half dozen people that own land around here but last year a 6000 acre ranch was sold, then one partner of a 4000 acre ranch sold his half, and now a third place is for sale. I don't know its size but I would guess around 10,000 acres more or less. I sure can't blame the farmers for selling their water rights given the fluctuation in commodity prices and the vagaries of crop yield but it is raising the temperature of some people's tempers and I think it won't be long before it starts stressing the control on their behavior that their religion exerted over the past decades when times were good and there was a general consensus about what was and was not the right thing to do with the water under your land.
Maybe reaching a consensus on the young earth/old earth argument isn't as important as praying that we figure out a way to stay civil with our neighbors. This problem is already spreading and unless the climate changes a lot for the wetter I think it will continue to spread and cause economic hardships across the country.
Darryl
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