Groundwater professionals digest drought details

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BY ART HOVEY / Lincoln Journal Star

Picture a giant dipstick yanked from the Ogallala Aquifer and you have a sense of what Mark Burbach was talking about Tuesday at a groundwater conference in Lincoln.

Years of drought have left the massive aquifer a quart low and it could go lower at a time when researchers are wheeling out evidence of global warming, rising temperatures, and longer and more severe dry cycles.

“A longer and more intense drought could be catastrophic,” said Burbach, an environmental scientist at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

But so far, things aren’t that bad.

“This has been unprecedented because of the drought period,” he said, answering a follow-up question, “but there’s still a lot of water in most places to draw upon.”

Burbach laid out the effects of what has happened through six years of drought for groundwater professionals attending the 51st annual Midwest Ground Water Conference at Embassy Suites.

Some 200 participants arrived Monday and will be here through Thursday at an event that examines groundwater trends from just about every angle.

In concluding his session, Burbach cited National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration findings from repeated analysis of 18 groundwater modeling sites around the world.

Those results put the average duration of drought at 12 years — twice as long as what Nebraska has experienced so far.

But he offered more balancing perspective later.

Although the number of registered irrigation wells in the state has gone past 100,000 in recent years, he said “irrigators recognize the challenge they face” and “I think irrigators are doing an excellent job of managing the system.”

UNL cohort Gina Matkin joined Burbach after lunch to describe an educational model that could be used to help the state’s groundwater users adjust to more changes in resource management.

Matkin laid out a three-step progression of assessment, challenge and support to arrive at a more sustainable water future.

“There’s so much happening now in groundwater management that causes us to think differently,” she said.

Burbach said Nebraska farmers had already shown their willingness to adapt by delaying their use of nitrogen fertilizer in the fall to reduce groundwater contamination.

But the dimensions of the drought problem he described earlier are formidable. For example:

n Ninety percent of the state has had below normal precipitation since 2000.

n Isolated areas in the south-central and southeast parts of the state have experienced groundwater declines of more than 25 feet.

n Weeping Water, about 30 miles east of Lincoln, is a Ground Zero of a kind for the depleting effects of drought. Over the six years from 2000-2006, a weather reporting station there has recorded precipitation at 78 percent of normal.

Reach Art Hovey at 523-4949 or at ahovey@alltel.net