124 OUR USE OF THE LAND 



time of the glaciers. A lot of the water of this basin is replen 

 ished by water entering rock in the Black Hills. These same 

 rocks underlie the artesian basin. The farmers have drilled 

 wells to get this underground water for their stock. 



As you ride through this great, flat land you see dotted 

 around the horizon the boxlike farmhouses, each with its wind' 

 mill pump. And there are more windmills in the pastures where 

 the stock is watered. 



Today the drain on this Dakota basin is greater than the 

 supply. In addition to the wells in use, much water is wasted 

 by permitting little used wells to flow unchecked. To all of this, 

 the recent droughts have added a further strain on the water 

 supply. Most important of all the causes of this water shortage 

 is poor land use. Too much plowing of the sod has increased 

 evaporation and run-off of rain water so that more of it runs 

 into streams and less into the underground basins. In some 

 parts of North Dakota, for instance, the level of the ground 

 water has sunk 30 feet within recent years. 13 In other states 

 in this region the same thing is going on. 



In the whole Great Plains country extending from the Cana 

 dian border, this ground water is an essential supply for stock, 

 and in a very few cases, irrigation. Most of the states have done 

 very little to protect the supply. New Mexico has a ground 

 water act. This law declares, "The waters of underground 

 streams, channels, artesian basins, reservoirs or lakes having 

 ascertainable boundaries, are hereby declared to be public 

 waters and to belong to the public and to be subject to appro 

 priation for beneficial use/" 1 According to this law, the state 

 engineer has control of the use of underground water. He can 

 regulate the drilling for such water and govern the use of 

 wells already drilled. If the users of this water have formed 

 a conservancy district to develop and use the water for their 



13 Letter from Soil Conservation Service. 



