PROBLEMS FROM DEVELOPMENT 47 



ground-water reservoirs will be depleted in a relatively 

 short time. Everywhere in the High Plains continued with- 

 drawal will be at progressively increasing cost in pumping 

 lifts. 



In the Northern High Plains in the Texas Panhandle 

 north of the Canadian River, there has been a notable in- 

 crease in pumping since World War II, and pumpage in 

 1949 was of the order of 60,000 acre-feet. Although the con- 

 ditions here are basically similar to those of the Southern 

 High Plains, pumpage is so much less that the area has not 

 developed critical problems. In Oklahoma and Kansas, the 

 High Plains is similarly underlain by permeable gravel 

 and sand with large quantities of ground water in storage. 

 The estimated average recharge, however, is greater than in 

 Texas, especially in the large sand-dune areas where infil- 

 tration of water from precipitation is high. Relatively little 

 water is being pumped from these aquifers at present, and 

 there has been no pronounced decline of water levels in 

 wells in the past 70 years, except in places such as Scott 

 County in Kansas where there has been heavy pumping 

 from wells concentrated in a small area. In fact, the High 

 Plains is regarded as one of the most promising areas for 

 potential development in both states. 



Still farther north, in Nebraska, the average rate of re- 

 plenishment to the principal aquifers of the Great Plains 

 is even greater, especially in the Sand Hills where those 

 aquifers include or are overlain by highly permeable sand 

 dunes. Ground water in the Sand Hills has not been de- 

 veloped for irrigation because the surficial materials are 

 too permeable for cultivation, and the land is used pri- 

 marily for grazing and wild-hay production. 



"Drift Prairie" of the Dakotas. 8 Many towns and hun- 

 dreds of farms in North Dakota obtain their water supplies 



s Reference: Filaseta, Leonard, "Ground Water in the Fessenden Area, Wells 

 County, N.D.," Progress rept., N.D. Geol. Survey, Mimeo. 

 rept., 1946, 22 pp. 



