Draining Arizona: Mining For Water In The Desert Leaves Residents' Wells Dry | NBC News
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 20 ก.ย. 2019
- The small desert town of Willcox, Arizona survives off groundwater. Families are running out of water as their wells dry up, and residents are blaming newly-arrived, out-of-state corporate farms. Residents say they fear one operation in particular, Riverview LLP, that came to Cochise County in 2014, sunk dozens of deep wells, and increased pumping to support two 65,000 cow dairy feedlots.
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Draining Arizona: Mining For Water In The Desert Leaves Residents' Wells Dry | NBC News
Are they even vaguely aware that it takes hundreds or even thousands of years for aquifers that deep to recharge? And that only starts after you reduce consumption below the recharge rate. Soon no regular people in the area will have access to ground water, and they never will again.
Man is a cancer on this planet.
It hurts my head listening to these people, they make a city and farms in the middle of the desert and just now are worrying about water. Humans are helpless
@@NDwhITeBoYZ Crazy part is, much of the same land that is now either true desert or arid scrub land once had the largest most ancient forests the world ever saw, and vast seas of grass as tall as a person with patches of savanna between where millions of buffalo roamed. Only 100 or 150 years ago depending where you're looking.
@@MrLoobu all of this in Arizona? I guess I’m thinking more like the Phoenix area
@@NDwhITeBoYZ uh no haha, Im carried away. Thats the west from the Dakotas to the California coast and down about to Arizona and New mexico. Some nice post card corners left, but by and large all the original vegitation and animals are gone, waterways diverted, ground paved over or covered in miles of monoculture farms.
I live in Australia, and love the great state of Arizona. I don’t understand why, in a dry place they don’t use the ‘Israeli drip feed’ at the roots .not sprinklers spraying water in the heat .The county supervisor, should be neutral, but sounds like a stateswoman for the company.
water used to be plentiful. There was little incentive to invest in efficiency. Everyone saw the bounty and wanted their share. The tragedy of the commons is real. Now they will eventually be driven to more efficient operations thanks to supply and demand.
@@lesterroberts1628 There used to be less people.. The sprinklers were so expensive that they don't want them under water level.. Why not repair the little things after the water is gone naturally in the season? Then you can keep it wet there where needed and full of water when it has rained.. Money and power is a bad thing for nature but gives people new ideas to survive.. and new inventions.. I don't like forced inventions too much.. And in the end the animals and so on loose their habitat because people use ground water in the mean while.. That is flora and fauna theft...
Underground drip tape is even better than drip hose. Can feed liquid emulsion through the drip tape as well
@rolanddevocht I don't like government interventions. When a resource is limited it is especially important that people comprehend they're relying on a community owned resource. The people who live there, work there, born and die there, they all have a right to participate in self governing on a local/county/state basis. You cannot use more than a share of a limited resouce that's essential for life, survival, and the community's welfare. There are those who will move into a locale and literally use resources up and then leave, with the resulting area becoming drained and useless. That is where federal government has to step up and step in to hold them accountable, even preventing such short sighted and self centered behavior. A nation cannot survive on such behavior dominating. It's similar to what a monopoly does in financial markets destroying free market capitalism. Such behavior is literally antiAmerican and socially unexceptable. No one has the right to own these resources, it's like trying to take the very air that people breath and insist you are doing nothing wrong. We know that water is an interconnected resource and what is done in one location affects those in other locations.
@@gailhitson6722 I totally agree. But every state ,country needs investment in infrastructure. If the people don't have money, than the private sector needs to step in. Private sector has often the money. And will employ the people ,paying taxes .
What I totally agree with you. When private sector controls local governments. That is wrong.
I live in the Northeast. Stuff like this is regulated for a reason. Like another commentator said corporations will always choose profits over people. I really feel for the Residents there. You shouldn’t have to leave your home. Vote your local politicians out.
I agree. But we're already screwing up the environment, and I don't see the government (dem or repub) doing anything about it.
@@arnolda.lampel6087 Their reaction would be to continue stealing all the water to use on crops or to sell back later at a massive mark up. They paid tens of millions for the land they aren't going to write it off while there's still a resource to exploit.
This is a best example of land mismanagement. I lived in Arizona 50 years ago and the argument then was whether the state should concentrate on cattle or farming due to which used the most water from the aquifers. No where was it better demonstrated than at the Desert Museum outside Tucson where a pole represented the sinking water level over time. Arizona is and will always be a desert. Mining what little water is there will only result in the desert becoming more so and spreading over all time. All deserts continue to expand and neither man or nature has been able to stop them from spreading. Only a fool lured by cheap land and a dream of making the desert bloom moves to Arizona.
@@jacksonheathen2092 Then replace them both with a locally selected independent, that's how we do it in Australia when both sides ignore us
@@arnolda.lampel6087 There's nothing wrong with the ranching they showed as being in that area forever, that's sustainable, they are providing only drinking water for the cattle, which the cattle then use to water the plants they like best & they are expected to survive on only locally suitable desert plants. Dairy is a totally different story, dairy cows don't produce creamy milk unless fed non-desert grasses & the number of cows there cannot even start to be fed by non-irrigated crops, that's where the problem is! Ban all irrigation water use & livestock farming is fine there - and yes that does reduce meat produced in that area significantly, but if you cut meat consumption by 50%, that just means someone in Saudi Arabia or China can increase it by 50%, since the alfalfa grown there will be shipped to those countries for their cows
AZ officials and legislators have been negligent with their water resources.
... she has heaped up silver like dust,
and gold like the dirt of the streets.
But the Lord will take away her possessions
and destroy her power on the sea,
and she will be consumed by fire.
Canadian just waiting for the USA to drain the GLakes and/or go to war with Canada (take ya roughly a week eh). Good luck. Dont put cattle in a desert.. Husbandry is something to ya know.. Know about.
They can build a 300km canal and pipeline from Gila River to the south Arizona partial desert. Solved.
You are incorrect. You should research this before you make statements like that. Water is a top priority in the Arizona House and Senate and there are many groups that focus on water. Arizona Agribusiness and Water Council is a good source of information if you would like to research this subject and not make comments that you obviously do not know anything about.
@@wendiwilcox2382 He mean all talk no action so, no water problems solved. Too long discussed and nothing done is it ?
Lack of regulation will ALWAYS comeback and eat you alive. Those "pesky" protective rules and laws have a purpose.
Really sad and shortsighted. But "Mexicans!"
So sad.
Lack of regulations is a good thing.
@@catsbyondrepair read the story - not in this case. Also, many of the cost-benefit analysis which are tough to generate limit the cost timeline so the value timeline seems to be in their favor. Better craft new regulations for the desert southwest..
You know who just got rid of a ton of federal regulations and gutted the EPA. This doesn't bode well for the little guys.
don't tell conservatives this..
A lot of the 200 to 375 head dairy farmers in the midwest are going broke because of these corporations setting up farms like this,
Corporate greed at its finest
Bill Gates recently bought some 245,000+ acres of BLM land in Eastern Washington State... he paid over $171M and has yet to say what his plans are.
Nothing wrong with greed, it helps you save. I started getting rich when I realized what I earned was not as important as how much I could save.
@@gregpeterman1102 wisdom
@@gregpeterman1102 that dont make sense dude
who cares? big corporations have a more stable business model and have bulk prices. Americans love beef and if we have to sacrifice a few old timer farmers who cares.
Supervisor Judd is on the payroll of Riverview LLP. She's getting kickbacks from them, big time.
Is your claim provable?
Libel & Slander or Fact? Statements like this don't help unless they are factual
She has a mustang
@@henryc1000 She's either a criminal or negligent, in either case she needs to go.
OMG people! This is pure and complete utter madness. Running themselves straight into the ground. Inevitable.
It doesn't matter to them.
Worldwide humans are farming more more cities worldwide smog burning air sky 07 warmer world
the state needs to be paid for this water and a check sent to each resident like they do in Alaska with the oil money
@@willscheck8072 the problem is the state isn't even making much money from these farms. The farms are owned/leased by Saudi corporations because there are NO water regulations for these giant farms. They literally grow nothing but alfalfa and ship it back to Saudi Arabia to feed their horses.
"rivers are replenishing the basin, Rivers coming from somewhere" That somewhere is her imagination.
She's probably thinking of the river of cash going into her bank account from the dairy company
LMAO
Jesus is coming back before he comes thing will happen on this earth.
Well said!
6:14 zoning laws change. 2 years later, the cattle industry move in. Not suspicious at all ...
Cattle are not the problem, people are, they are the ones over using the water, kick them out.
It seems to me there would be about a thousand places in this country more suitable for this type of operation than a dessert.
They looked at the expanded flatlands, water tables, topsoil. My guess. They’ve done their homework.
I suspect that they knew that could steal the neighbor's water to force them to sell out cheaper. And who else will buy land with no water? The neighbors do have a solution though - see the video Greening the Desert. They actually create an oasis in a desert that had no water. It can be done, but the less rainfall there is, the greater the challenge.
@@Growmap that requires everybody to take part. it doesn´t work with a big corporation in the middle stealing the effort of all the others.
Just look at all their other operations in the Midwest.They have a huge one in Minnesota where I spend my summers.
But not as cheap, obviously
Corporations are soul-less entities, like demons.
And they create jobs and produce more affordable goods and services, without corporations we would be a third world country.
@@gregpeterman1102 does that mean we need to give them unlimited political power and tax breaks? You're talking like someone who only sees one point of view.
@@unifiedvision999 Political power? Tax breaks on anything helps everybody. If corporations are taxed more it means cost increases on whatever they produce making their goods or services more unaffordable. Nobody in their right mind wants that.
@@gregpeterman1102 blah blah blah keep talking from one side of the equation and don't acknowledge the other. Sure sounds like you're caught up in the status quo, which means you're a Republican. It's all so simplistic it's actually shameful.
@@gregpeterman1102 Nah, small business or even private individuals growing the food for americans would be better. You guys trust you big business blindly, and in return the feed to to be like fat cattle ready for the pharmacy big business. Its no life to live.
Deregulation and short-sighted activity's make the desert drier. The aquafer will empty, the land will sink, and it will take 60,000 years to restore by rainfall.
Wolf Jumper yah and your kids kids will be and it’ll be our fault for letting it happen good on you brother
Corporate greed paired with corporate welfare. We need a revolution! Vote!!
Well said
Yang 2020
The usual story. People are totally against regulations and for the unrestricted exploitation of natural resources. The American Dream, Pursuit of Happiness, and all that. Then one day someone Pursues greater Happiness by destroying their environment and taking away the resources that they depended upon. Will they one day understand why regulations are necessary, and why the environment must be protected?
Nope because Clintons emails and the "deep state".
It's ridiculous. They're unwilling or unable to learn. Greed for them means greed for someone bigger than them.
This is the US, so the answer is no.
They never wil. China is planting trees in the desert to stop the desert from growing. The dessert there is now holding water. Afrika is planting trees to stop the Sahara from growing. America is exploiting the land to become a dessert. Did you know that in Libya there was a waterinstalation that pumpt water from the ocean, and remove all salt from it and that that water was pompt in to the desert.??
No, they will just blame liberals and "communists."
It’s the American way… commerce means everything, life is expendable.
Worldwide humans are farming more more cities worldwide smog burning air sky 07
How come every time I watch a video like this one I see people irrigating crops in the middle of the day? I thought it was common knowledge that irrigating after sundown is better because less water is lost to evaporation, allowing more water to soak into the ground.
This could be early spring time or during colder weather
I’m in the ag business here in Texas and to answer your question your are right it’s best to water at night, but the pivots are walking so slow it usually takes 24hrs to make a complete rotation. By the time they do it’s time to start the process again.
@@ryanweaver3615 We can put people on the moon but we can’t figure out a better way to irrigate?
Watering when sun goes down leads to fungus growth other nasty things
@@ryanweaver3615 That seems like it would lead to an uneven crop. If watering at night is better, that slice of the pie/ clock face should also grow better, no?
Another score for Corp. greed .
US corruption fun fun
Power of the good ol GOP’s free market this is what happens when you let money hungry companies manage you’re resources instead of a nonprofit government organization
Are these cooperations actually owned by billionaire bill gayts
@@crazytigerspy9420 Goverment cannot do anything that a private enterprise cannot do better, including space exploration.
@@gregpeterman1102 expect the government doesn’t need profits so they won’t exploit their resources
This has been a issue for native's for years in the reservations but Now it's new's. 👍
Thank you
Speak Up Sista!?!
Exactly
Yeh and all reservations look like the slums of chicago. Natives cant even take care of it. Every reservation I've been to has been filled with drugs and alcoholism. I have never seen a nice reservation
@Ron Hunter by @Jason Tempel commenting the word facts, just means that he agrees what the statement because it is a true fact.
I'm from Cochise county my mother has buffalo sisters trading post in Wilcox this has been a on going problem and when the dairy farmers expanded it killed the water aquafer a lot of empty houses now cause people can't afford to have there wells deeper it's hurting the locals
We are facing these very same problems out here in Africa. The never ending expansion of vineyards in a semi-dessert area. Well some of these areas now do not have enough water to get them through this coming season. And the El-Nino Effect is going to run for another couple of years or so. Cape Town is going to go through some more grief over water usage. And so it goes.
the sad part is it's a milk glut right now. this doesn't even make sense.
Miss O.P. I was thinking the same thing! Milk prices have been so crappy! And with Walmart creating their own dairies and creameries. I didn’t think we needed any more dairy cows anywhere. I’m here in Minnesota in the price of milk is pushing out all the small dairy farmers. It’s making it absolutely almost impossible for them to continue.
Because milk is terrible for you and shouldn't be consumed if you care about well being.
@@CharityS-Minnesota once the small dairy farmers are gone they'll start raising their prices. Welcome to capitalism, the race to monopoly. Corrupt government won't enforce the anti trust laws.
milk is disgusting. adults should not drink something that promotes growth like milk.
The Masai drink a lot of milk and are very healthy.
How is this protecting people's rights, and monitoring one of our most precious resources?
Sadly i have a book on my shelf that talked about situations like this just over 25 years old.
Try 100 years ago.
This elected official Judd, needs to be voted out of office!
She may be afraid for her life. That is how these companies operate.
Sad statement on Cochise County land management.
Just recently move to arizona and I'm shock to learn about this. Thank you for covering this
@Moon Shine oh that will do the trick! The blue people will tax the water and everyone moves away even faster...blueser loser.
When I lived in Arizona in the 70s/80s there were water shortages. I kept a 5 gal Gerry can full of water with me at all times driving around the White Mts and Cochise Co etc.
what land were you living in sounds like most americans are like they dont know till they move to a place they did not look at first
see a dream but not the problems when you get there
your bloody fault.
Get ready to move again.
Well that was dumb
This is frightening for land & well owners of long time residents of generations in Arizona.
Lisa ... I study the science behind Climate Change. Humans are 100% responsible for Anthropogenic Climate Change. In 1988 Dr James Hanson was filmed by the media WARNING the goverment that Climate Change "global warming" has been detected. Co2 emissions from human activity "means you me and 7.9 billion humans on earth" are burning co2 and filling the atmphere co2.earth show where earth is, and it shows a history of co2 emissions. Co2 traps earth heat from escaping into space. Co2 is like insulation, it allows photons into earth is not blocked by co2 due to the wave length mismatch. The short wave length of photons pass co2 and methane, then it hits the surface of earth and turns into long wavelength. Co2 and methane trap that heat and it is RAPIDLY trapping more and more heat. 90% of that heat energy ends up being stored in the worlds oceans. Total heat storage of the Earths Atmosphere is equal to scientific notation 17x10^20 Jules heat energy. To give you a idea how much heat that is equal to, imagine dropping 5 Hiroshima thermal nuclear bombs per second. Its going up ever year!! its causing oceans near the equator to see temperatures as high as 85F. You can see the South Pacific temperatures reach these temperatures on www.climatereanalyser.org 32c is 89F that will staralizes the top 400 feet of the surface of the ocean in surface ares near the equator earth.org/rising-ocean-temperatures-killed-14-of-the-planets-coral-reefs-within-10-years/ Did Climate Change occur in the past yes! yes did it. 55 million years ago the Great Paleocene Eocene thermal maximum was a historic event of earth. It was again, caused by co2 injection into the atmphere. Deep ocean core sample expeditions drilled ocean cores and removed them for examination. The scientist read the layers going back 55 million years ago though radio carbon dating. They saw evidence of Acification "occurring in world oceans today" evidence of co2 from heavy volcanic acidity lasting 5 to 10,000 years. The core samples shows the total accumulation of carbon rose upwards of 3-7 trillion tons lasting upwards. They saw layers of sea shells that were dissolved from the increase carbon acid that is caused by co2 dissolving in the worlds oceans. The ocean was becoming very acidic and killed most likely most under sea wild life. You can go on you-tube and type in Ocean Acidification to see that humans are 100% responsible for burning coal and oil and large percentage of it is mixed with seawater. Its dissolving tiny mollusk "oysters" in Puget Sound. In the early days of the Global Warming, our IGNORANT Congress has been mostly to blame for not believing the scientist to reduce co2 emissions that will eventually push earth into a Mass Extinction.
the water is the money it needs to be shared with the people not sent to big greedy outside selfish money lovers
People who want no rules and the right to do whatever they want are horrified when other people move in and take advantage of no rules and the right to do whatever they want. Can't have it both ways forever.
Capitalists’ short term thinking and limitless greed just sickens me. The system needs to change!
It will. You’ll die and your children will refuse to have kids, because they’ll die along side their parents. The system will fix itself; it’s called a mass extinction event.
@Lorita Alanzo You sure know how to comfort people...
Anna A She's right but you can't handle the truth. The earth is currently undergoing the sixth great mass extinction. Go figure. Duh.🙄🙄🙄
@Faux Manchu Yup. It is. But we are not extinct yet, are we?
The most comprehensive evaluation of our urgent situation - The UN’s IPBES report - says we still have time to avoid total catastrophy. If we make drastic changes.
I for one am prepared to do that. I’d even go back living a simple farm life or whatever it takes, if that meant saving our natural world and climate. All alternatives are better than dying, wouldn’t you say?
That's it blame capitalism for everything .
The problem with our society is that we became a very "me" selfish society. For a society to prosper, a society has to become a "we" society because otherwise the society will seize to exist. If we don't work together and share our resources equally in a responsible manner our society will no longer exist.
@peter lee Well said, Peter. And capitalism as it works today, drove that development. The system only includes monetary values. It lacks other - for the society, climate and environment - more long term values.
peter lee
But, but,..”soshalisum”!
Nah. This is a property rights issue. Quit doing stupid things like operating anything in the desert.
@Daniel S With today’s capitalism system, there are no incentives to ”quit doing stupid things”.
Then this is what you get...
@@magicforest71 there has never been enough incentives to not allow stupidity. If you want people to have any freedom then they will undoubtably use some of it to behave stupidly.
These companies should be held responsible for supplying residents with water, since they are draining the basin, and when it runs dry they should have to ship it in. May make them stop expanding.
It’s not being replenished! Wilcox Basin is a dry hole, y’all! Get with the program, humans!
When I see cows farmed like this vegetarianism looks great. This is happening all over the world multi national corporations taking over
Vegetables take water too...
@@ryrysix1547 N
@@ryrysix1547 much less Go Vegan
@@ryrysix1547 100 times less than beef for sure.
So if we all become vegan
( which will never happen)
Then some corporate jerk will do the same and produce people food instead of cattle feed...
Think it through
This is not a situation confined to just southeast Arizona. Look up the Ogallala Aquifer, a huge multi state water source in the midwest, from Nebraska in the north to parts of Texas in the south. Water is being mined there to continue the productivity of the "nation's breadbasket," which is one of the world's breadbaskets. In some places the annual drawdown is 7 feet where the natural replacement rate is 1/4". This is water from the last ice age that we are mining and its happening all around the world.
One excellent book that covers the water issue in the western U.S. very well is "Cadillac Desert" by Marc Reisner. It is a bit dated as it was originally published in 1986 and in the intervening 30+ years the situation is more critical. The Greatest Generation looked at the west and said they could "make the desert blossom," some of the Baby Boomers said "wait a minute, this can't go on forever and population growth is a large part of the problem." Generation X thought their parents were a bunch of hippies, but some looked into the science that covered water and other resources in relation to population growth. Now a bunch of millenials just play around on computers with a cell phone as a head appendage and think technology can solve anything, just like the Greatest Generation thought in the 1920's and 1930's. It will be the grandchildren and great grandchildren of the Baby Boomers that are going to have to face this head on and with fewer options than ever before.
Skeptics say, there is a solution and we can keep doing what humans have always done for 10's of thousands of years. "Malthus and Paul Ehrlich were wrong!" I think they were both a bit ahead of their time, but the principle of limits on the human population is a valid concept we must face. In the future the end of the road will be reached and we won't be able to kick the can down it anymore.
with the trillions we blow on nothing of value, we could desalinate ocean water.
The Year is 2021 & This story is so relevant so why are we not talking about this more. Great News Story & Great Coverage of Facts. 🙏💦💧💯
@M R there is nothing boring about losing all our water and food to corporate greed
If you have fog in Arizona someplace . Use a “fog net” to collect the water above your low desert. It changes a desert into a lushes farm land and drinking water. This is independent from underground, Colorado River, or ocean source. This might be a pioneer for California. When they see that it works for your state.
They don't have fog dude.
How is it that the U.S. has become for sale?
When ya sell de land and later sell it fo profit, overstand de beast who him God is de money, seen.
I'm, hey, did u watch the news? Trump got elected. Now he's trying to sell all the land the Government owns to oil company s that used to be Nat.l parks,..u been under a rock, or out driving cattle?
Trump sold Crimea to Putin, you forget..?
Because were sellouts thats why we will eventually fall ( Next generations) HARD
@johann rüstmann did you know that certain Chinese farms qualified for millions of dollars in aid from the farm bailout?
Absolutely Breaks My HEART!!
Wait till co2 emissions see 350 parts per million Climate related mass migrations, people dieing from record heat wave and famine will make the news almost every night. Welcome to the next mass extinction! It happened 55 million years ago and humans been warned by the IPCC.CH it is happening again. Soon life on earth will become uninhabitable and the only place to survive will be any land mass north of the 49th parallel.
Business interests always seem to come before the local interests.
Now you know how the natives felt and still feel
"Who was here first" hmm!!! LOL.
The irony.
Ha!
ya, seriously.
The Anaszasi were among the 1st peoples in Arizona--It was years of drought, and no rain that drove them out of Northern Arizona, and the Grand Canyon area 3000 years ago............
wild west still down in Arizona looks like. Resource extraction built the West but will be it's downfall when they all run out
I live in the Colorado mountains and reports are that the snow pack this year has hit a thirty year average low.
Prepare to hear a lot more about this story this summer.
Climate Change is turning into a GLOBAL Climate Crisis. Dr James Hanson was right!! In 1988 he made a huge announcement to congress that Global Warming has been detected and with the progressive emissions of co2 and methane, it could cause earth to see large amounts of fires, floods, droughts and heat waves. He and the loose organization of Atmospheric Scientist were off by 30 years. He predicted hurricanes would reach between category 6-7 in strength. Evidence of these past mega hurricanes is from MASSIVE chunks of Coral Reef were washed up on the coast line of Caribbean countries. According to Dr Micheal Mann, Humans have been burning Coal and Oil at 100 times faster then the last mass extinction 55 million years ago. Humans will eventually move north due to water scarcity, famine and deathly heat waves and crush the housing supply in The northern United States. Other humans will migrate into Canad or any other country north of the 49th parallel. Droughts always generate conflict and that is exactly what occurred in Syria. The Syrian war has killed 250,000 humans. MIT has been using mathematical models to predict the fall of human civilization around 2040.
It is common practice in the Phoenix area for schools and parks to flood irrigate grass wasting thousands of gallons of water. The Arizona Department of Water Resources turns a blind eye.. Check out the three video's on my channel: Arizona's Department of Water Resources allowing the wasting of water flood irrigating grass.
Profit over people
So sad
Imagine the landscape when Cochise was around...
We live in Washington state at the foot hills of the Olympic mountains . It rains a lot here . So much so that our new concrete sceptic tanks we just had installed floated out of the ground before we got them filled with water. This video makes me grateful for the abundant water we have here. We are lucky here because we are surrounded by big timber company that don’t use much ground water. So I don’t see things changing anytime soon.
Entirely different situation from the arid southwest.....down here ...No colorado river means no life for 40 million americans...up there you have countless lakes and reservoirs....
@@BenChung78 I hope so I spend time with him daily and am hoping every day is the day we meet him in full glory, love to you my brother
Atmospheric water generators solves that problem. Wind turbines hooked up to a water pump from your wells with irrigation traughs would work too. Just seen a movie about it on Netflix. Kid built a wind turbine from used car parts and his dads bicycle with dynamo and hooked up a water pump to the well and then bamboo traughs brought the water over the fireld to grow crops in the dry season and year round in Africa
DUST BOWL #2 Coming up.
They will go until they are bankrupt
There’s a book up on the shelf about the dust bowl days .
So many warnings recently that we are in drought, or that we are running out of water. Yet nothing changes and we just keep plunging forward. The grandkids of these geniuses will be shocked at the thoughtlessness of their grandparents.
The grand kids will move to where there is water.
They will dry up the water table turning the area unusable in the future.
They continue to monitor the ground dropping on a monthly basis.
There are wells completely dry all over this area. I'm lucky. My well is 575ft which is a deeper well compared to many at 400-460ft that are dry.
This is an ecological disaster waiting to happen.
Does any ecology depend on aquifers?
It seems to me more like a human disaster than an ecological one
@@ThomasBomb45 You're right, the weather hasn't changed being that deep, we're not talking about the water cycle. Bout the only disaster is eventually the US will have a permanent famine because even these corporate farms will sap every last drop of water in the aquifer.
@@alainarchambault2331 Well the water cycle does slowly replenish aquifers, but yeah we are using it up way faster than jt can be replaced. Absolutely moronic to do something like this. Farming in the desert using nonrenewable water. Ridiculous
@@ThomasBomb45 Yeah except for one thing. Mind, I don't know about that basin there exactly, but do you know that California's Central Valley has been subsiding? The ground has sunk on average about 50 feet in some areas. So, imaging refilling a smaller aquifer that doesn't hold as much anymore? Also, some deep aquifers have actually been cut off from the water cycle. Can't recall what the geological term is for those, but draining those is permanent.
Not waiting to happen, it IS happening.
Reminds me of what’s going on in the Amazon. Agribiz.
That County Supervisor sounds “bought” 💯
I may have missed it.. are these residents and ranchers asking for the government to step in with regulations? Or are they hoping that these companies will just 'do the right thing' on their own?
If conservation and mitigation isn't enacted soon........we could very well see another dust bowl situation.
I saw a documentary about 10 years. How California is drying up the Coldordo River. So Arizona would be the first state to lose access to the river.
It's weird we had record breaking rain this summer in south eastern Arizona. A lot!
It’s called geoengineering.
And now we’re in a drought. It’s called the desert for a reason.
I went to the county years ago to use a veteran lead team to repair the Rucker Canyon Dam. The answer was no.
Problems are not personal unless one is directly affected. Easy to understand but easily forgotten until too late.
It's gotta be about the scale of the operation that is allowed - I live in Minnesota and most years we have excess water. Most farmland has drainage tile that allows water to flow into drainage ditches. The water eventually ends up in the Mississippi River.
When you get zero rain, what did you expect to happen to the water table ? No water = no water...
That particular basin is fed by the Chiricahua Mountains (almost 10,000') that are substantial and feed that basin in both winter and summer.
When was the last time you were in the Chiracahuas? Its 100° every day in summer and bone dry... We bring extra water everywhere we go.......
Those Aquaphor's took thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of years to fill. Once drained the will refill only on a geological time scale, Many thousands of years, assuming they are not drained faster than the infrequent rains can fill them.
i don't understand how they can grow crops in the desert and pump water out of the ground.one day the land will stop providing water because it will have no more left to give. than what happens to the people that live off that land .the people that buy the food at some point they will starve or worse. in your opinion what is the solution.
@@supersaiyaman11589 In Australia ranchers are allowed to make water points, with evaporation efficent systems, that are accessible to cows for drinking, but not for any other purposes. The million year old water squirts out of the ground when a hole is dug because the aquifer is so full & is maintained that way & the cattle feed on natural desert grasses & produce billions of calories a year in a sustainable way
Excellent reportage on rural water issues in my home state of Arizona
There are a couple new ranches now, 2021. One has their wells down to 2500ft dropping the ground level.
One day is going to be dry nothing left too pump up
Once the water table is sunk, will sink-holes follow? That would be a bit of divine justice.
it would have to find the company which I think is out of state.
It won't be justice. They'll have made their money back many times over and will happily cut and run for new territories.
Even if the wells dry up, it won't make any difference to these massive corporate dairy farms as they'll just truck the water in from Texas.
Most of the Dairys in SoCal are gone and the few remaining are in the valley between Bakersfield and Fresno. They had to move somewhere so we can have our meat and milk products.
Wen our children’s children are drought stricken and famished then we’ll find a solution to big ag, global warming and water usage. But by then it’ll be to late
Roshni Patel so yah cuz my kids about have their firsts in five and seven months from now so soon enough. My kids kids.
We won't find solutions. We will find extinction.
one of the thing i don't like is a lot of times human beings and corporations don't do anything until it gets absolutely necessary
They just made a show about this. It’s season 3 of Goliath on Amazon Prime
12:02 That wasn't practiced at all.
*Googles Peggy Judd and finds allegations of her taking part in the insurrection on January 6th, 2021.*
It’s so sad there’s a greed greed to have that direct link up with us
growing Corn in the desert? Make Arizona Dry Again..MADA
Build a giant pipeline from the Mississippi to the west. I mean if they can build oil pipelines that long why not water
No ,first off the Mississippi would cost ,as much as the great lakes to filter, size of pipes would need to be bigger than la river. Cost of water would be more then gas to pump it. Would need a under ground aquifer that would flow , that could be filled from sever sources
@Enrique
That would be rather expensive water considering the Mississippi is over a thousand miles away and a pipeline that long isn't free. 20 dollars of gasoline can cover some distance. 20 dollars of water to take a shower isn't going to please people. Here's a better solution; don't take up residence and agribusiness in a dessert. If you must, zone control the area so you don't have too many people seeking too little water.
Interesting approach . . . the technology, is there ! And, the funds to accomplish said feat my become available . . . for the right price ! $ 🏦
@Marty Wheeler
Where the distances are very small compared to the United States. Israel is about the size of New Jersey and has the population of NYC. So what works there isn't going work over the vast distances of the US. Piping water tends of miles isn't the same as hundreds or a thousand miles.
The more food you put on the table the more people drop their knickers.
We need a coast to coast water pipeline system. No one in America should run out of water.
I always thought of desalination of sea water wouls be the solution to western droughts
I've always said this The Great Lakes to the Rockies and Let the Water Run Down into Nevada and Arizona but hey Greed is What Comes first
"They are here to stay forever". Sure they are, sweetheart. Sure the are. When the water is gone, so are they.
sounds like the locals need to look to their roots and draw blood from the feed lot folks.....guessing that they will find republicans owning that feed lot.
Short term returns and then move on when the wells dry up.
Who cares about the long term effects, just $'s.
Its only going to get worst now that more factories and farms are being developed.
Selling and exporting limited essential resources like water is very, very short sighted.
Even a child knows this.
Oh computer models predicted in the early 90s the entire SW would become basically uninhabitable due to climate change. It might interest you to know that so far these models have been spot on.
when the land drops from water being pump out it will turn into a deeper hole then already is
it would be nice to see a update
this is the same thing that drained the water wells in Saudi Arabia and now they're doing the same thing to us.
Half mile well. 😨 Who's water are they stealing.
Soon its Chinas water, they are useing 😀
Gonna be tapping into China pretty quick
Yeah my well in New Mexico is 265 feet.
Look to Israel they turned a dessert into green with super efficient irrigation practices there's new screens that collect the water from air,and poles that freeze to make ice that melts off into fresh water.There's a lot of solutions for dessert areas now so maybe more research and $ invested differently would help.The dairies should find the solutions for their cattle...JS
Madfaith 777 Wrong, Israel destroyed the environment and diverted the rivers causing droughts. Do not believe whatever you hear.
Truly an agricultural miracle. As a person interested in agriculture and water in the American southwest, I can't help to be amazed.
Also of note. The nation of Israel is about 90% of the size of Maricopa county and about 7% the size of the state of Arizona.
Welcome to Tx! 2021 and forward!
wow ! i lived in Willcox for 20 years it is very dry there
The farmer "I've been here my whole life my great great grandfather is barried here."
Old lady probably from California "I've been here 14 years those people need to leave."
Yes I found that odd she would be like ive been here forever...I mean 14 years! Lol.
LMAO! If they didn’t want the farmers there they should of bought the land up or not sold out. Oh I forgot they are liberals with no money. Lol
@@ryanweaver3615 You obviously didn't watch the story dufous, A lot of the land was BLM land--Bureau of Land Mgt-- in other words----The Government...... The other lands were purchased from desperate local farmers who couldn't sustain their farms any longer due to the lack of water..........
@@thomasfoss9963 Good grief....those local landowners got out bid by the big farms moving in from Minnesota....those big farms them proceeded to start digging huge wells that sucked up the aquifers....which then made the local landowners wells run completely dry.....without water any more they were forced to sell out their lands to the big farms who then dug even more deeper wells and expanded from 60,000 cattle to another 30,000 more cattle.....this happened in the entire county for 12 years since 2010. .....the result being landowners now have no water to pump and their land has become essentially useless without the water.....and the big farms keep on expanding drilling their wells from what was 270 feet to now on average 1200 feet.....they have done this to the entire county....they won't stop.....they will keep expanding into other counties and do the exact same thing over and over again....the entire time middle class america is being given the boot in favor of international corporations.....globalism hitting hard in rural america....WAKE UP>>>>>Jesus Christ returns 2028....7 years to go of this nonsense getting progressively worse and then BOOM>>>>>THE END>
@@BenChung78 Gotcha---When I lived in Northern Arizona in the 70s/80s there were major water issues then!!! Beside the deep well problems, and the strong-arming of the small farmers--Developers also were allowed to build sprawling subdivisions from Phoenix up to Cottonwood----
You're running out of water in a desert where it doesn't rain....? 🤪
*Thank you.*
"Let the Sunshine In."
If there is no significant rainfall then forget looking at underground aquafers because these will soon be empty if you pump them ! Been there done it even here in the UK.
Please, all of you, watch this video and understand the depth of what is happening in our communities. The aquafers will only remain aquafers for so long. The very lives and livelihoods of the residents are being negatively affected. Call, speak to your local county supervisor, Peggy Judd, and other representatives of the community, about that which is taking place. Do not let this oppurtunity to share your thoughts go by, and then wonder what has happened to our water.
In reality, I think you know those calls aren't going to work. Take a look at "voices for indi" in Australia to see what does work. Our independents manipulated the government & took advantage of politicians sick & overseas to get the numbers to get a water use review through parliament to protect the little guys from the big industry bullies. Voices for Indi was our first & blueprint for how to remove the politians that won't listen & replace them with our own people. You can absolutely use that model to replace your guys too & as soon as you do even one, the others start to feel the fear & take you more seriously. Ours didn't cower properly to us though, so last election we replaced 16 "safe seat" conservatives with our own grass roots candidates. Voices for/of is a phenomenon now in Australia & has changed our political landscape forever. Please follow & do it there too! You can fix these issues if you do!
Unfortunately there’s no money in water. There’s pipelines that go from Texas to New Jersey pumping oil. But water the basic need of all life, nope. It’s all about greed and profit.
Give it ten years. The first dude to see the housing bubble only trades in water rights. It will become the ultimate commodity on paper, which it has always been.
Libertarian View: Regulation is bad, do whatever you want. We have infinite resources to use.
Actual Reality: Scarcity of resources exist in the world. Who knew?
One day, when the land is barren, and the water is gone, you will come to understand that money can not be eaten.
The big factory farming operations will be there until the water runs out.
Up next: building a ski resort in the desert
There's one near Tucson on one of the sky islands known as Mt Lemmon. It opens rarely but its there. It's called Ski Valley. www.skithelemmon.com/
There is only one way this story is going to end. The water will be exploited to the point where it is no longer viable. The feed lots will relocate and the existing farms and communities will literally wither away.
im a nobody who finally has an investor for verticle farming and a great plan, but omg am i terrified about the lack of water in the region...